W phase MT refers to using the near-field terms (whispering gallery phases?) visible on very broadband seismometers to get a focal mechanism. They are useful because one can compute them with just a few stations and only the recording up to the S wave, quick and accurate. A recent invention of Hiroo Kanamori at Caltech.

I haven't looked closely at this prediction, but it might be interesting. The old, unsubstantiated claim is that radon gets released when there is deformation, and old, unsubstantiated models such as dilatancy predicted precursory deformation. I think there were foreshocks in this case, perhaps there was precursory deformation. If so, there are probably easier ways to spot it, like geodesy or strainmeters, and it is fairly clear that most quakes do not have much precursory deformation, but still any precursory signals are interesting, even if they are only rarely effective and usually aren't followed by earthquakes.