Hi Michael,

During the years of monitoring Parkfield 5 alerts have been issued for anticipated earthquakes of 5.0 or greater. I have the actual number and class somewhere in my research documents. I am not positive, but I believe only one Level A alert was issued, a couple of B's and 2 C's. No earthquakes arrived after these Alerts.

Dr. Tom McEvilly says they have learned a lot from monitoring Parkfield's micro earthquakes. But in my humble opinion,to put it to use in prediction so far has been a wash. However, it certainly does not mean that in the future, if more activity of a greater nature provides study of something besides "micro activity", we might see some changes in their hit ratio.

There are a goodly number of highly noted seismologists who have been steady at the helm of the Parkfield Project. Alan Lindh, Tom McEvilly, William Bakun, John Langbein, Andrew Michael and even Lucy Jones and way, way back, Max Wyss. I've had the pleasure to meet all of them, except Bakun. Michael and Jones wrote a 24 page document on Parkfield. Its darn good reading, easy to understand and gives you an idea about their findings. I'd highly recommend anyone who is interested in the research at Parkfield to read it. You can find it on the web in Adobe Format.

Most of you won't recall this, but on Feb 26th 1998 Parkfield had a 4.2 at 7:30 AM. I headed down there that night, hoping there might be something left for me to feel during the weekend. Well, another no hitter. But I caught Parkfield fever and I haven't gotten over it yet. Its one of my favorite places. Its a terrific place to jump off a short bridge, right into the river that marks the division of the continental plates. I got some great rocks from there. But, on my next visits, no bridge jumping anymore. Oh well.

In fault-line study, Parkfield is a wonderful place to go. I've had the official tour and have seen the scientific wonders. Its so quiet there at night, you'd swear any minute the big one was going to hop up and get you. Only one travel advisement, if driving at night, please watch out for the wild pigs, they are huge. I don't mean boars either, real pigs. Scared the ... out of me the night I went down there. Full Moon and all.

Go there, catch the fever, its terrific...Petra