EARTHQUAKE FORECASTING COMPUTER PROGRAM UPDATE
Posted by EQF October 25, 2008

The following are personal opinions.

This computer program is now fully operational.

With this interactive computer program, professional and amateur researchers around the world will be able to enter the time or times when one or more electromagnetic pulses such as Ear Tones were detected or the times when one or more earthquakes occurred. And among other things, the program will draw world maps showing the locations of 50 destructive and 50 nondestructive past earthquakes that matched the signals or earthquakes.

When earthquakes are tested the results can at times indicate that the earthquakes were triggered by the same forces as those past earthquakes.

When electromagnetic pulses are tested the results can at times show where the fault zone or fault zones responsible for the pulses are located and suggest where an earthquake could be about to occur.

Perhaps one person in a thousand can detect Ear Tones. And with six billion plus people around the world that means that there should be an enormous number of information sources for the electromagnetic pulse information. So, after the program is made available as a download we could conceivably have a situation develop where on one day, hardly anyone, anywhere is predicting earthquakes. And the next day people everywhere are predicting them. This should be interesting.

The number of past destructive and nondestructive earthquakes displayed can be changed while the interactive program is running by pressing the appropriate keyboard keys. And those past earthquakes can be selected to be within certain latitude, longitude, magnitude, time, and level of destruction ranges.

The main program is a Perl language .exe computer program that sends plotting data to the Gnuplot graphics program for display. As an interactive program it can change what is being displayed at a rate of two or more screens per second.

The plan is to store the program and support files at one or more Web sites as freeware that can be downloaded and used for free. People will be able to develop additional features modules using almost any computer language that will run on Windows PC type computers. It is presently running with Vista and XP and will probably run with other Windows operating systems such as 98, 2000, ME, and NT. When the program source codes are made available it should be possible for the program to be made operational for use with other operating systems such as UNIX, and computers such as Macs.

The downloadable zip file, expected to be about 10 megabytes in size will probably contain a complete directory system that can simply be extracted and then stored and run from any location on a computer or read/write external hard drive, CD, or flash drive. The package might also contain two Excel files that displays certain additional types of data. Efforts are underway to merge those files into the main Perl language program. The program can also be distributed on CDs or flash drives. On a disk the program and its support files are presently about 40 megabytes in size.

Nothing else has to be downloaded. The program does not install anything on the host computer or change registry keys etc. at any time. If its directory is deleted, all traces of the program and its support files permanently disappear. People who wish to modify the original Perl language source code would need to download and install a Perl language compiler available for free at one or more Web sites. They might also want to download the free Gnuplot graphics development software.

The program’s basic source code was formally copyrighted years ago. The plan is to include the latest source codes, actually written in several different computer languages, with the downloadable package as soon as enough explanation information has been added so that programmers can understand what the various programs, subroutines, and files etc. are doing.

It is presently running on computers owned by several researchers. As soon as its ReadMe and Help files etc. are ready and it is in a form where it is easier for people to understand and use, copies will be circulated to additional researchers. After they have had an opportunity to comment on it the plan is to store the program at Web sites for downloads.

Earthquake researchers and disaster mitigation personnel around the world have been told about the existence of the computer program. The technology it relies on was discussed in one formal publication, at a disaster mitigation conference in the People’s Republic of China in late 2003, in at least one internationally circulated news report, and on television. A present goal is to discuss that technology in another formal presentation at some conference.