Hi Roger,

For one thing, those charts are serving as an additional source of forecast data which people can reference.

Earthquake forecasters around the world contact me and ask if I can confirm their predictions. With that chart they can determine that for themselves. If they are expecting an earthquake at some longitude and there is a large peak at that longitude on my chart then I would advise them to do some further checks and start getting ready for a significant earthquake. If there are no peaks at that longitude on my chart then I would advise them that even if there is an earthquake at that longitude it will most likely be harmless.

Second, if other researchers see a series of peaks begin appearing at some longitude such as 120W then I would advise them to take a closer look at their own forecast data to see if they might also be indicating that an earthquake was approaching.

If I remember correctly, about two months before that November 15, 2006 8.3 magnitude Kuril Islands earthquake I began circulating earthquake warnings to earthquake forecasters and disaster mitigation personnel around the world. But I could not clearly point to the location where it finally occurred. If that chart had been available at the time, then during that several month time span it would have become increasingly clear where one was likely to occur.

With that magnitude it was certainly a significant earthquake. And had it produced a tsunami then it could have been quite destructive. As far as I can tell, no one else even knew that one was approaching.

What I tell forecasters around the world is that they should be comparing notes with one another when they think that a significant earthquake could be approaching. Individual sources of data do not appear to be that reliable. And now they can easily reference the data that I am generating.

I have good precursor data going back to at least the year 2000 and plan to generate one of those charts covering the past seven years. It should be interesting to see how many past earthquakes such as that Kuril Islands one appear on the chart. The highly destructive December, 2003 Bam, Iran and October, 2005 Pakistan did clearly appear on one such chart that I generated several weeks ago.

Finally, there are an almost unlimited number of improvements that can be made with that forecasting procedure, most of them with the computer programming. But the first step was to just get it running. And that goal has now been reached.

These are personal opinions.