Dennis,

Please read my comments below the paragraphs:

Daniel Schorlemmer and Stefan Wiemer at the Swiss Seismological Service in Zurich argue that these characteristics could have been anticipated by looking at the history of the region differently. Using an analysis of the small earthquakes that occurred in the area over the preceding three decades, the pair retrospectively forecast the tremor's unusual behaviour. They say the same technique could help identify other at-risk regions around the world.
(Hind sight is always 20/20. They've been around for quite awhile, so why didn't they come to this conclusion years ago?)

The technique is not expected to pinpoint the timing of earthquakes to within days. But, says earthquake expert John McCloskey of the University of Ulster in Coleraine, UK, "if they get it down to within maybe ten years, it begins to be important information."
(I'm sorry, ten years is not good enough, nor is one year either. The one year time span could afford folks time to sell, if anyone would buy, but ten years is long enough to ignore the warning altogether. IE: Useless)

Little and often

They say that the entire area seems to have more of the 'large, infrequent' tremors than experts had previously suspected. This could be the reason why the September earthquake was 'late' (see 'Tardy earthquake excites California geologists').
(Big surprise there, huh?)

But McCloskey cautions that strain studies do not give the whole picture. How and where an earthquake occurs also depends on the strength of the rock, and therefore how likely a fault, or a region of a fault, is to give way. "There are many internal complexities," he says.
(I definitely agree.)

There are no new revelations about Parkfield and there most likely won't be any. It is really most unfortunate, because I like everyone else wanted Parkfield to be a total success and though it was successful in some ways, perhaps not the way we all wanted it to be.

Petra