John,

By making a contribution I had hoped you would extend more of your knowledge base to the rest of us. It is rare for you to take the lead and attempt to impart that knowledge and the wisdom of your experience with us. Lowell Whiteside was a very valued contributor here and he gave us a lot of his time and helped us to understand geo-sciences as well as his uptake on what he thought about certain issues.

I can answer your question, but this time I'm going to let you answer it. It's your field, the map comes from your people, so perhaps it is not to much to ask that you take five minutes of your time to explain it. No doubt no matter what I said you would find exception to it anyway, so why should I? If you chose not to answer, then as far as I am concerned it's a dead issue. I'm not asking for the encyclopedia of earth sciences, just one little thing. You're the professor, how about a lesson? I got more from Leon Knopoff in two hours than I've gotten here in years. And I paid for it too. And those two hours were some of the best two hours I've spent in years.

I just don't understand. I can phone people, e-mail them, write to them, spend my money and go and see them and no one has a problem answering my questions, but this one itty bitty little thing I ask of you just seems monumental. I realize you want to know what I know, but no one here is interested in what I know. They all have opinions, but that's about it.

I'll add to that and say you cannot ever hear what I hear or have heard from other scientists because they won't say the same thing to you. I hope you realize that. You are to mainstream for them to discuss anything that falls outside of established scientific points of view. So in that I have an ear that has heard far more than you have heard or ever will hear. I can take it or leave it, but it provides room for more thought about what it all means and how it forms in the big picture. I do feel priviledged that they trust me so much that they are willing to express their points of view. So though you don't think very highly of me, there are a number of who do.

I'm not positive what direction I will go in exactly, but I do feel change is necessary. I'm already seeing someone stealing information off of my web site and using it for their own. I suppose that was a given, but it surprised me none the less. These are strange times and perhaps in that I need to develop another way to spin the wheel. Hopefully one day I can actually devote some time to thinking about it seriously. While some people are making predictions on web sites they don't explain in exact detail how they are doing it, so it leaves a little room for the security process. Doing live experiments has its pitfalls. As does being terribly honest.

So give it some thought, maybe this once you'll be kind enough to impart something you know to us and we readers here and those out in cyberland may learn something from you, one of America's foremost scientists.

Petra