Hi Canie,

Thanks for all of the moral support, especially in the past. This is some information regarding where things stand on this project.

Governments and disaster mitigation groups need certain types of information regarding approaching earthquakes so that they can get both themselves and people living in the area prepared. After an effort which has lasted some 15 years my forecasting technology has finally reached the point were I believe it can generate that type of vitally important information. I always expected that this might be possible. But I wasn’t certain how long it would take or if I would ever be able to get the work done myself.

A number of years ago I wrote to top U.S. government officials (not in the USGS) and also officials in Japan and recommended that they do this work using their giant computers. The main U.S. group that I contacted wrote back and said that they thought that the effort was important. But they felt that it was the responsibility of the Department of the Interior to do this type of work. And they themselves were prohibited from stepping over departmental boundaries. (Translation: A classic case of passing the buck!)

One of my (now deceased) contacts who was at one time a high level government official in a certain area, who I gather personally knew a number of U.S. presidents, and who had plenty of clout in the government also tried to get some work done along these lines. And he was told the same thing.

Here is where things stand at the moment.

When you are doing this type of work there are two things which you need in order to be successful. The first is the technology itself. And that technology now exists. The second is a support organization such as a research group which can get the technology developed and in use by governments etc. around the world. There is no support group like that in existence at the moment. I submitted a proposal to the United Nations which outlined a plan for establishing a procedure which would make it possible to easily and efficiently get those types of support groups organized for a wide range of health and life threatening problems. And they apparently thought highly of it. But it appears to me that those people tend to move rather slowly. They need to debate things for a decade or two before they act.

So, at the moment one of the main things I am focusing on is how to get such a support group organized or have some existing group get interested in the technology. And with people dying on the average of 1 per hour during earthquakes occurring around the world plus other projects I need to work on I don’t have any time to get into discussions or arguments here regardless of how many people get upset.

One of the options that I am considering is asking some of my contacts to invite me to give a talk on this technology out in New York City or some other location where quite a few scientists and news media personnel would be able to attend. We tried to get something like that going a number of years ago and were set to get the lecture hall reserved and fly in earthquake experts from around the world etc. But this is not a funded effort and not part of my regular work. And I could not get any time free to attend the meeting. So it was cancelled.

This technology is now two full generations more advanced than what geologists are used to thinking about regarding earthquake triggering processes. That makes it virtually impossible for me to discuss it with them. The phenomena I am presently studying have that first generation of phenomena as their foundation. And since the geologists do not understand the first generation of concepts it is not possible to discuss this second generation of concepts with them. If we do go ahead with a lecture on this followed by a discussion and answer session then during the lecture I would start with classical geophysical concepts and then build on them through the newer two generations and then sit there and answer questions. That is now the only way this technology could be discussed. It has gotten that complex.

Don’t worry about the heated discussions filling the EarthWaves board. I have found that this type of thing happens fairly often with technological projects of different types when they get to the point where things are starting to work. As I said, I am mainly using the board to make announcements and provide board visitors with project updates.

As you suggested, if people don’t like the information in my project reports then they should just ignore them. I myself haven’t asked anyone to respond to them. And I would prefer that people not post any responses to them if they are not specifically related to the technology being discussed.

Finally, the importance of this type of effort needs to be remembered. A major earthquake here in the U.S. or a series of powerful earthquakes could wreck havoc on our country and our economy. And when people believe that they know how at least some of that devastation might be avoided then they need to say something, and over and over if that is necessary. Also as I have said in the past, because of the present political climate surrounding the science of earthquake forecasting, each researcher is largely on his or her own to get the message out regarding successes and failures. No one else is going to do that for them.