John,

I had a think in the garden early this morning about this. You made some good points. So, let me see if I can offer an intelligent response.

Your posts remain a curious mixture of

1. assurance that earthquakes are definitely predictable (based on ear tones, as far as I can tell),

Though an expected quake does not have a 100% probability of occurring, at the specified, time and location this is something we expect or anticipate. A possible explanation is that though the signal heard indicates an earthquake should occur there, the precursory movement which created the signal may not be sufficient to accelerate ground movement or the movement might arrive in the form of aseismic slip, rather than a slip and slide or thrust event. Recent mapping indicates in an average two week period we may miss one 3.0 quake somewhere in the State of California. There have been around 9 quakes per period, so our hit ratio is around 89%. Of course there have been many times when we have hit every one, so I guess it's fair to say our hit ratio would be between 89% - 100%.

2. a defense that we need research to find out if earthquakes are predictable, and

Yes. I do support research; however, not in the form of a Parkfield experiment which proved to be extensively costly with minimal results. Nor do I support SAFOD in Parkfield as I don't believe solid results can be achieved by digging into a fault without the development of a new type of instrumentation, so we would not anticipate the same results. This is just my opinion as I don't feel the large expense would net information that would support it. I am in favor of Tom Jordan's program because it creates a place where those who may have an interest can participate and use their skills. I believe he needs more funding though and perhaps once it gets underway and there are some positive results he may be able to secure that needed funding. He only has 1.2 million and that's a far cry from Parkfield or SAFOD, and the mini-PBO network.

3. lack of confidence in the very people studying how rocks break and monitoring faults with sensitive instrumentation.

Sometimes I do and I think it might be as a result of how scientists themselves don't agree with each others findings. As an example, just using two, they might disagree with each other and say each others theories have no relevance. Others might feel that #1 is good and #2, not so. Or they could both be supported. This creates a sort of confused thought. And as you know in some cases though a scientists findings are significant, they may be long gone before any credit is given to them because of later studies which fill in the gaps to validating that persons hypothesis such as the Channel Scablands in Montana. It took about forty years to confirm that scientists findings.

Petra