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: flame
Keywords: ELF Monitoring, Earthquake Forecasting, Magnetic Fluctuations
Date: 15 Oct 92 21:28:01 GMT
Followup-To: poster

In article <2ADCC2C0.22668@news.service.uci.edu>, lockhart@uci.edu (Jack C. Lockhart) writes:
> 
> I received the following article in the mail and thought it would
> ...
> will be forwarded to the author via snail mail... SO FLAME AWAY!  I

Ok, flame on.

>                 "THE TRUE CAUSE AND ORIGIN OF EARTHQUAKES"

The title alone makes this immediately suspect.  I have always had some
interest in pseudo-science, how it manifests itself.  Titles like this are
a dead giveaway.  With a title in this class, put youself in the frame of mind
for some good belly laughs.  I always read things like this the same way I read
"The Weekly World News".

>                          BY: DAVID K. YOUMANS
>                         SEISMIC RESEARCH ASSN.

Never heard of the man or the association.   And seismology is a small field.

>                         NEWPORT, INDIANA 47966

Such a seismically active area, too.

> nothing new to any of us.  They have always assumed a mystical
> position, both in history and in terms of scientific understanding,

"always mystical"?  I have never heard of them being treated as mystical
in modern times, particularly in science.  Again, this conman is prepping
his audience for the big con.

> phenomenon in the REAL WORLD.  Theory can never pass into the realm of
> actual KNOWLEDGE until it passes such test, and very little, if any,
> deductive application can be drawn from it until one can use such
> theory or "assumptions" to validate physical facts already in
> existence and to distill ACTUAL and PREDICTABLE RESULTS out of them.

Again, the words "REAL WORLD" "ACTUAL" (note the caps as well) are just
part of the con.  This man is tugging on what he feels are the predictable
gut reactions of many people.  Sadly, he is accurate in the effect of such
devices.
Regarding theory, plate tectonics is one of the most successful
of 20th century theoretical discoveries.  Its predictive power has been
verified literally 1000's of times.  Before we had instruments that could
actually measure the instantaneous velocity of the plates (GPS does this
quite well today), the plates were predicted to be in motion.  Plate
tectonics predicts the direction of plate motion, and this has been
confirmed many times through direct measurement.  Plate tectonics predicts
that rocks and fossils on opposite sides of an ocean should be identical
if they pre-date the opening of the ocean.  This has been found to be
true in every case.  The spherical nature of the earth requires that
velocity balance out along any closed path around the earth's surface.
This has been shown to be true many times.  There are many other examples
of plate tectonics' predictive power, not to mention how it carefully
fits together the tremendous body of geologic and geophysical knowledge
that predates the theory of plate tectonics.  Note - I have not mentioned
seismology at all.  Seismologists did not come up with plate tectonics.
It was first proposed by Wegener in the 30's, but dismissed due to lack
of evidence and lack of mechanism.  Marine geophysicists and geomagneticists
proposed the theory again in the early 60's.  This time, it stuck - there
was mountains of evidence, and convection provided a mechanism.

> frictional "pressures" in the process.  As the story goes, these
> pressures accumulate so-called "stain" and eventually cause the rocks
> to fracture, resulting in an "earthquake."  These plates are
> supposedly moved about by theoretically-conceived "convection-like
> currents" similar to the agitator action inside an automatic clothes
> washer.  According to this THEORY, the Earth isn't actually much
> different than your Maytag, a prospect which is highly unlikely.  If
> you want the REAL TRUTH, the seismologists haven't a clue as to what

This guy is not very practiced at the con game.  He knows the words
"so-called" "As the story goes" "supposedly" "THEORY" (in caps) "REAL TRUTH",
but he uses them too frequently.  Even the most gullible person would start
to become suspicious under this barrage.  Anyway, he offers no evidence to
dismiss convection.  It boils down to this, he doesn't understand convection,
therefore it is "highly unlikely".  Talk about your king-sized loads of BS!
Convection is required in the earth.  How can you tell?  Very simple.
It's thermodynamics.  Measure the heat coming out of the earth.  This
allows you to at least put a lower bound on the temperature at the center
of the earth (the fact that the outer core is liquid, which is directly
observable, is an even better lower bound).  Anyway, the radius of the earth
and the temperature difference and the maximum heat conductivity will give
you a scale time for conductive cooling.  The viscosity of rock and the
radius and temperature difference gives the scale time for convective
cooling.  The time for convective cooling is much shorter than that for
conductive cooling, therefore the earth convects.  This is high-school
thermodynamics.  And don't be concerned that the earth is rock - there
is no such thing as a perfectly rigid substance.  Everything flows given
enough stress and time.  Glass seems pretty solid, right?  Go to a building
that has glass that's more than 100 years old.  I've seen window panes that
have flowed so much that a gap has opened at the top and the bottom shows
a thick bulge almost doubled over.  And ignore the washing machine analogy -
he's got the time scale all wrong, and convection is driven by heat, not
an agitator.

>      Earthquakes, instead, are caused by an interaction of forces
> inside the Earth which are electromagnetic in origin and are
> controlled by the Sun and the Moon.  Earthquakes basically have little

I'm so happy this guy has decided not to burden our poor uneducated
souls with anything so ridiculous as evidence or proof.  He just says
outright what he knows to be true.  Afterall, he created the earth and
it's quakes, he has the right to just make pronouncements like this.

> rocks get in the way, or impede the natural flow or pathway of the

Just how does a rock "get in the way" of an EM wave?

> high-velocity electromagnetic waves or energy collides with the rocks

True, EM waves are high velocity.  The highest velocity permitted in the
universe, c, the speed of light.  And I thought they taught that in
elementary school science.  Obviously, the schools I went to must
be some sort of bizarre anomaly.

> in the Earth's crust, in a lazer-like action, it causes the ground to

He doesn't know what a LASER is or he'd be able to spell it.  It is
"Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation".  It produces
a unique EM wave in that the light is coherent.  But heck, he doesn't
even know what an electromagnetic wave is, let alone that light is
composed of EM waves.

> actual epicenter of an earthquake the ground motion is perceived as
> vertical (up and down) movements, while the farther away one travels
> from the epicentral focus point, the more lateral or horizontal the
> ground-motion becomes, which causes the typical swaying motion to

Wow!  an accurate point.  This is true.  Of course, not for the reasons
he thinks.  He does not understand elasticity.  Rocks are elastic.  If
you vibrate them in one place, they radiate the vibrations away from that
point.  There is no need to postulate some mechanism to continue to act
on the earth's crust away from the epicenter.  Elasticity explains that.
Or would he like to explain why when you stand on the ground a few hundred
yards from a big pile driver, you feel the ground go up and down?  Or why
a quarrey blast produces effects that to anyone but an expert are
identical to an earthquake.  Is the quarrey blast producing the same EM waves
he postulates from the sun and moon?  Anyway, the real reason that motion
becomes more horizontal is that surface waves decay as distance from the
source, while body waves decay as distance squared.  The surface waves
have mainly horizontal motion, body waves have both.

>      A massive amount of misunderstanding exists surrounding the
> subject of earthquakes, and most of this confusion has been created

by loonies and deliberate conmen like this guy.

> erroneously conclude the entire phenomenon is a RANDOM one and

No one has concluded that.

> we have to view the earthquakes as a generalized condition on the
> Earth, since they occur in a wide variety of geological and geographic
> settings, and have no specific restriction as to what time of day or

No problem there.  All seismologists would basically agree.

> another.  Secondly, we should consider that a force of some kind, in
> this case an earthquake, is responsible for the observable fissures in
> the ground we term "fault-lines," and not the reverse.  To conclude an

Gee , he was so careful to provide reason in his first condition (note the
"since" in the above sentence), but now when we get to HIS nonsense,
the burden of reason has taken a lunch break again.

> phenomenon according to the known laws of physics which have been
> established over time to evaluate such events mathematically vis a vis
> time-spatial analysis.

But we have already established that this boy does not understand:
thermodynamics
electromagnetics
elasticity
Which look to me to be a very big chunk of the "known laws of physics".

>      Seismologists are so busy digging into the ground in search of

No, PALEOseismologist dig into the ground.  Dr. Kerry Sieh and others
do this to date and measure past quakes, including ones that predate
written history.

> gremlins that they fail to remember their seismographic records so
> diligently collected contain the most valuable information of all,

I'm sorry, but I've looked at 100's of 1000's of seismograms.  It's really
about all seismologists ever do.  I know their value.  He has probably
never even seen one, and certainly couldn't read it.

[Eeuwww!  big massive heap of horse doody about "logic" removed for compost.}

>      The seismograph is a simple instrument, refined by modern and
> technical advancements to RECORD ground motion of earthquakes AFTER

Yes, so?

> they have already occurred.  They are incapable of predicting anything

Yes, so?

> They are meant to record the time, location, and the magnitude

No, no, NO!  They measure none of this.  These three values are computed
from observations measured on many seismograms, which are inverted
(using a statistical method, shame on us!) to produce a best-fit time,
location and magnitude as consistent with seismic theory (for shame!)
and measurements of the properties of rocks (how shocking!).

> Since it contains both the exact time and place of the event

No, no seismogram contains such info, and the results seismologists
obtain for location and time are not exact, merely accurate, but thanks
for the vote of confidence 8-).

>      The movement of the Earth around the Sun forms the basis of time,

Oh yeah, that's right, PHYSICS!  How soon I forget.  of course, time
couldn't be a basic physical concept.  Only the earth's orbit could be.
Poor Dr. Stephen Hawking, he's been deluded all this time (ooo, a pun).

> operating notably to create the tides, the magnetic field of the Earth

Yes on tides, no on the magnetic field - the earth does just fine on its own.

> Sun and the Moon is not a difficult thing for most people to grasp, as
> these parent celestial bodies play so many important and diverse roles

What the heck is a "parent celestial body"?  How did the moon qualify?

> While some studies
> performed by scientists show no visible connection between positions
> of Sun-Moon phases and earthquake activity, the studies themselves are
> faulty, and too superficial to admit of results.  Additionally, these
> studies were only intent on trying to establish the influence of the
> Sun and Moon as a secondary factor or "tidal force" thought to be

Mucho wrongo, buddy.  The studies sought to establish ANY statistical
correlation between quakes and orbital elements.  No mechanism was
implied.  And they were superficial only if you consider using every
quake above magnitude 4 world wide for 70 years (all that were available)
superficial.  This is 100,000's of quakes!  Many other studies
have been done to address selected subsets of that mass on the idea that
maybe if all earthquakes show no association, that perhaps some particular
group will.  There has never been an association found.

> Such notion as "stress"
> is only theoretical and is, in reality, non-existent, and is based
> upon unsubstantiated reasoning.

What?  And he was lauding the known laws of physics above!  Stress is a
fundemental physical concept dating back to Gauss and even earlier.  It
is about as established as any physics gets.  What the heck is this
"unsubstantiated reasoning" he talks about?  Notice - you never get
details when he jumps off the deep end like this.  He can't even be consistent
with his own arguments just a few paragraphs back.  And he obviously
thinks stress is an invention of seismologists.  It predates seismology
by a few hundred years.

> fictitious conditions.  In reality, as I have been able to concretely
> establish and document, the Sun and Moon are MORE than just an
> INFLUENCE.  THEY GOVERN THE ENTIRE PROCESS and ACTIVATE IT ALL.

Note that he has established NOTHING!  He merely said it.  His sole
supporting argument was that "it was not too hard to conceive that they
govern quakes".  So just because he has no trouble forming the thought
"the sun and moon cause quakes", he claims this establishes cause and
is sufficient documentation.  And his cell mate in the psycho ward might just
as easily think "fried eggs govern quakes".  So that is proven too.


--
Richard Stead
Center for Seismic Studies
Arlington, VA
stead@seismo.css.gov
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes,sci.geo.geology,sci.astro,sci.archaeology,sci.geo.meteorology,sci.research
From: dec@alex.com (Doug Clinton)