From: stead@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes,sci.geo.geology,sci.astro,sci.archaeology,sci.geo.meteorology,sci.research
Subject: Re: THE TRUE CAUSE & ORIGIN OF EARTHQUAKES (AND THEIR PREDICTION)
Summary: The end is in sight!
Keywords: ELF Monitoring, Earthquake Forecasting, Magnetic Fluctuations
Date: 15 Oct 92 23:13:31 GMT
Followup-To: poster

In article <2ADCC458.22856@news.service.uci.edu>, lockhart@uci.edu (Jack C. Lockhart) writes:
>      Instead, the animals, being more sensitive to humans to such
> changes in the Earth, become effected when these electromagnetic waves
> pour through the Earth's crust and bombard their more sensitive
> auditory apparatus, setting up shrill noises inside their heads, out
> of range of human hearing.  Such presence makes them nervous, and they
> run about in an attempt to escape from it.

Piezo-optical effect!  That's new to me.  Is there such a thing?  I can
almost imagine such a thing.  Can photons excite phonons in certain
materials.  I'm actually curious - any physicists do stuff like that out there?
Of course it doesn't operate in animals if it does exist, but now that his
random pseudo-science generator has spewed it forth...

> To them, the animals may
> simply be reacting to methane gas or something else drawn from the
> arsenal of geological imagination.

Well, at least we're not mining the arsenal of those stables Hercules had
to clean.

>      The so-called anomalies of earthquakes are indeed quite logical
> if you have all the "facts" properly arranged and accounted for.  For

That's very true.  Of course it has nothing to do with the pile of drivel
he wrote preceding this statement.

> they have still yet to demonstrate such understanding
> with concrete proof or RESULTS achieved only through systematic and
> successful prediction.  Only through prediction can one verify his
> knowledge about anything, especially as it relates to the physical
> world and the events thereof.

Somehow, this guy thinks that means predicting the times of earthquakes.
Seismologists have many times predicted the location and sizes of
earthquakes.  They have predicted times in a very broad manner.  We
can very precisely predict the effects of a quake, down to almosyt every swing
of the pen on a seismogram if we need to, and have the computing power
available.  This we can do just from basic physical laws and the observed
properties of the rocks.  Of course, there are 1000's of other things
seismologists can predict.  earthquake times is about the one thing that
is elusive.  However, seismic theory predicts that such information
IS hard to obtain.  Thus, another valid prediction.  However, this guy has
failed to predict not only the time of quakes, but anything at all about them.
Let's see him predict something.  Come on, just something, it can be little.
Heck, there are many magnitude 4 quakes on any day, just give the hour
and the location to within a couple degrees of one.  It should be simple for
such a sophisticate, and we can test your theory the same day!  You have bragged
about how simple your theory is.  How about a non-seismic prediction?

> One can suffice to say that prospects for
> misconceptions are infinite in a system of logic, like plate tectonics
> of the geologist, where results through verification have been
> omitted, and deemed impossible.

And indeed, the prospects for misconceptions are multiplied manifold
when an individual spews forth on subjects he ahs absolutely no knowledge
of.  However, while plate tectonics has been tested 1000's of times in
predictions that have nothing to do with seismology, this guy's drivel
has not been tested once.  He has not offered a single prediction of any
sort, nor has any prediction of his nonsense been tested in the past.

> Instead, it is matter of essential survival to millions of people in
> this country and other countries throughout the world.  The time has

What is essential to the survival of these people is better construction
standards, and imaginative engineers that can take the substandard materials
available in the third world and craft new quake-resistant designs using
them.  That will save lives.  Not the maniacal ravings of an ignorant
lunatic.

[He claims to analuze the 1906 quake, but there are no numbers or equations
or anything.  He just keeps talking about it as if he did do it and show it,
but it ain't here}
> solar-lunar resonance. This is only one single demonstration or
> example of how it works.  The underlying time-spatial mechanisms are
> infinitely more complex, and are not inherent in this information.

Now the simple theory has suddenly become infinitely complex.  I wish he
could make up his mind about anything.

> Write the author for the picture and additional
> information if you are interested.

I am pleased to report that I am not interested.  Oh the picture might be
nice as a conversation piece - I get "The Weekly World News" occassionally
for the same purpose.  Really fun after a few beers.  But I'm to lazy
to write for it.  I've got many other entertainment options that take
less effort.


--
Richard Stead
Center for Seismic Studies
Arlington, VA
stead@seismo.css.gov