HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: tcsmith@cdmg-hq.UUCP (Ted Smith)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: CDMG ONLINE
Date: 27 Jan 93 03:57:50 GMT
X-Maildoor: WaflineMail 1.00r

Subject: AVAILABILITY OF USGS EARTHQUAKE DATA VIA MODEM

"Jack C. LOCKHART" <LOCKHART@uci.edu> writes:

>Keywords: Earthquake Maps & Reports
>It is not certain if the Southern California postscript maps will be
>posted again.  However, there are several ways for you to get this
>information.  Data is available via this news network, FTP, and MODEM.
>Two sites available via modem are listed below.  One site is located
>in Northern California (Sacramento area); the other is in Southern
>California (Anaheim area).

>The California Division of Mines and Geology has a BBS up and
>running in the Sacramento area. It's at 916-327-1208, 300/1200/2400.
>It's popular "Wildcat" software running on some kind of MS-DOS machine.
>You might want to liase with the sysop there.

Thanks for the plug, Jack, but an update is in order.  Our phone
number's the same, but we've got a Hayes Ultra 9600 modem connected to
our 386SX NCR (an IBM clone) now.  This modem also has data compression
and error correction capabilities.

We echo the weekly reports from Caltech and USGS on our bbs at
916-327-1208.  And, we do the uudecoding for you.  Because of our
limited connection with the Internet (we're working on increasing that
capability, too), the Caltech reports and maps may not be posted for a
couple of weeks after they're issued.  Just as Jack does, we settled
on the yyEQCAmm.zip naming format where yy is the last two digits of
the year and mm is the numerical month indicator.  If you miss the
reports and want copies of past reports, all that we have received are
available as ZIP files -- downloads are possible on your first call. Log
on at 8-N-1, please.

We also retrieve information on recent earthquakes from the USGS QED
Service in Colorado.  These are posted daily at about 2:30 Pacific time
as on-line bulletins 30 and 34.  We've constructed a program that takes
the latest USGS QED data and compiles it into a running log of this
month's earthquakes.  At the end of each month, these summaries are
moved to an archive area.  Comprehensive lists for 1991 and 1992 are now
available as EQ-1991.zip and EQ-1992.zip.

Other enhancements include netmail connections to geoscience and GIS
bbs's in Pasadena, San Jose, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Ontario
(Canada), and Iowa.  This network (GeoInfo) is expanding and should
shortly include the USGS BBS in Menlo Park.  We also offer echoes from
SFNet (Science Factor Network) and BRRAnet (a GIS & CAD network).
Some USENET conferences (like ca.earthquakes and most of the sci.
groups) are echoed on our bbs.  All these news conferences are
accessible either for on-line reading or by downloading mail
through our QWK-mail door (Tomcat) for off-line reading and writing of
replies.  Finally, some BBS's in San Diego and Sacramento have begun to
pull news from us, so you may begin to see new points of access to our
service.
---
 * QMPro 1.01 41-6306 * Time flies like wind.  Fruit flies like pears.
From: stephan@cis.rand.org (Stephan DeSpiegeleire)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: Earthquake Alarm?
Date: 21 Jan 93 06:27:48 GMT
Reply-To: stephan@cis.rand.org (Stephan DeSpiegeleire)
Organization: RAND, Santa Monica CA

Does this mean that the type of  alarms  that  you  guys  have  *IS*  100%
reliable?  And  if  so,  can  we  infer from this that they might some day
become part of some civil defense-type alarm system as exists for airraids
and/or missile attacks?

				Stephan
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
From: eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Earthquake Warnings (was Re: earthquakes during surgery)
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 02:28:54 GMT

In article <23282@venera.isi.edu> tar@isi.edu writes:
>that any panic caused by the alarm going
>off would be short-lived (or justified :) 

No, that's stupid.  You have to review the history of disasters where
panic played a part of making this worse: consider things like firemen do:
the Coconut Grove fire, recent fires at post offices and meat packing
plants, soccer and rugby games where people recently have been crushed to
death.  Please explain an instance where panic is justified.  It is rarely
short-lived except when the people perish quickly.

> > 2) possibility of false alarms).
>
>This is much trickier to get right.  If the false alarm rate were too
>high, then the alarms would end up being ignored.  I'm not quite sure
>what rate of false alarms would be acceptable.
>Something along the lines of one or two per year might be tolerable,
>although that would still be a large number of false warnings for each
>true one.

You and I might consider that rate tolerable, but others might not.
You gave a reactor SCRAM as an example.
So then who decides?  Based on your analysis above, you have lost our
credibility that a 1-2 times per year rate is okay, and you gave it to the
reactor manager.

Decent analysis removed for shortness.

>In spite of these reservations, I'd still like to have one for myself
>(if the receiver weren't too expensive).

Depends on the costs.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Resident Cynic, Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers
  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
Second Favorite email message: Returned mail: Cannot send message for 3 days
A Ref: Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, vol. 1, G. Polya
From: dorothy@n6ume2.uucp (Dorothy Darby)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Menlo Weekly Reports
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 22:42:40 EST
News-Software: FSUUCP 1.3r1
Reply-To: dorothy@n6ume2.uucp (Dorothy Darby)
Distribution: ca
Organization: PSN Pasadena

Is there a place to obtain the listing for the names of the stations
that the events are reporting from.

If I am not clear:  under remarks on the Menlo Weekly Report, I believe
those are the abreviations of the reporting station.  Is there a list
for what those abreviations stand for?

Dorothy Darby
From: andy@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Andy Michael USGS Guest)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: Creeping Quakes?
Date: 27 Jan 1993 00:35:11 GMT
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
Distribution: ca
NNTP-Posting-Host: pangea.stanford.edu

In article <1k1udb$cua@agate.berkeley.edu> pedro@eerc.berkeley.edu (Peter Clark) writes:
>Related to this and quite relevant to those of us in the East Bay,
>I'm somewhat curious about the recent small quakes near the San Leandro/
>Oakland border.  The first one caused a bit of damage to chimneys right
>in the epicentral "neighborhood" (literally - only one street showed signs
>of damage).  The next one was a week or two later and slightly smaller,
>but if I remember correctly, the weekly report said it was in almost 
>the exact same location.  I realize that the Hayward fault is always
>grumbling a bit, but these successive quakes in the same spot got me thinking,
>especially after someone told me that strong East Bay quakes
>have sometimes followed strong South bay quakes (i.e. Loma Prieta) rather
>closely.

This is a fairly active spot on the Hayward fault and as earthquakes
cluster in space and time (e.g. aftershocks) two events close together
and near each other in time are not much more interesting than just the
first event.  Only if there are far more events than expected in a time
period should one start finding it very interesting.  I don't think this
is such a case.

Also, the evidence for quakes on the Hayward and in the Loma Prieta area
being tied together is weak.  It happenned twice in the 1800's but there
were a lot of earthquakes during that time period in the Bay Area and
thus the random chance of this happenning without a mechanism is high
enough (10 to 20%) to make it hard to believe that a mechanism does exist.

Andy
From: dorothy@n6ume2.uucp (Dorothy Darby)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Telemetry Frequencies
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 12:13:51 EST
News-Software: FSUUCP 1.3r1
Reply-To: ddarby@eis.calstate.edu
Distribution: ca
Organization: PSN Pasadena BBS

There is a list of frequencies available which you can get.  It is on
the PSN (Public Seismic Network)BBS.  There are three BBS's online:

        Pasadena        818 797-0536      2400 baud  N-8-1
        San Jose        408 226-0675         " 
        USGS Menlo      415 327-1517         "

The list is for the "Southern California" area.  We do not like to advertise
them cause they have been hunted down in the past and destroyed.  If you
obtain the list, it would be appreciated that you use your discretion in
giving out the area of location. File name is Freqs.Zip 

Susan Hough mentioned that there were "amateur" seismologists around who
are up on these things and use CB communications.....Let me correct that
statement.  NOT CB, but HAM radio.  There is quite a difference.

I belong to a large group of HAM radio operators who are also "amateur"
seismologists, also very much into Internet also.  Lots of us are able to
access Internet also...I maybe just more vocal.

HAM radio is what got me interested in seismology, as there was an established
group already existing on a local frequency, when I got my license.  In fact
that is why I got my license, cause I wanted to participate in their 
discussions.  There is more to the story, but most may not be interested.

Anyway, there is now several BBS's available which echo the same info, 
available to the public which have all kinds of info available all related
to seismology.  There are 6 files (including GIFS) available on building 
your own seismometer.  There are also projects to build your own telemetry
etc.  

We also have the CDMG (California Division of Mines & Geology) echo their
bulletins related to Geology, and have set up a Geology Chat section so
BBS users can ask questions and get answers from any State or Federal BBS
(related to Geology) via the CDMG.  This is done on a daily basis by CDMG.

Dorothy Darby
From: hough@seismo.gps.caltech.edu (Susan Hough)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: Frequencies for telemetry ?
Summary: short answer
Date: 26 Jan 93 19:11:16 GMT
Distribution: ca
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
NNTP-Posting-Host: earth.gps.caltech.edu

In article <77558@apple.apple.COM> erc@Apple.COM (Ed Carp) writes:

>I've noticed in the past few weeks several requests for details on the
>telemetry from various earthquake sensors, but I haven't seen any details
>posted.  Would someone either post or email details, like frequencies,
>encoding of data, etc.?  Why aren't these details being posted?

Because we don't know the answer (speaking for myself, at least).

The seismologists (even this "instrumentally-competent" one)
who read & post to this group are typically far removed from 
details such as telemetry frequencies.   I'm told there are amateur
seismologists around who are up on these things; I've heard
that they tend to have CB communications rather than Internet
access, but that's about all I know about it.


Sue Hough (speaking for myself, and not the USGS).
From: tar@ISI.EDU (Thomas A. Russ)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: Earthquake Warnings (was Re: earthquakes during surgery)
Date: 27 Jan 93 19:23:31 GMT
	<23282@venera.isi.edu> <1993Jan26.022854.7049@nas.nasa.gov>
Reply-To: tar@isi.edu
Organization: USC-ISI
In-reply-to: eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov's message of 26 Jan 93 02:28:54 GMT

In article <...> eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
 > In article <...> tar@isi.edu writes:

Given that the maximum warning is around 5-30 seconds...

 >>that any panic caused by the alarm going
 >>off would be short-lived (or justified :) 
                                          ^^
Boy, you put in the smileys and they don't help at all!  Some people
just don't understand jokes.

 > 
 > No, that's stupid.  You have to review the history of disasters where
 > panic played a part of making this worse: consider things like firemen do:
 > the Coconut Grove fire, recent fires at post offices and meat packing
 > plants, soccer and rugby games where people recently have been crushed to
 > death.  Please explain an instance where panic is justified.  It is rarely
 > short-lived except when the people perish quickly.

You seem to be making the assumption that people who panic at the
sound of the alarm won't panic when the ground starts shaking!
Short-lived means that within a very short time after the alarm goes
off, you will either have an earthquake (the alarm was right) or you
won't have an earthquake (the alarm was false).  In the first case,
you haven't advanced any panic by much time at all.  Anyone who panics
when an earthquake alarm rings will almost certainly panic when a
strong earthquake hits.  In that sense, they would panic anyway.

In the case of a false alarm, after some short period of time it
should be clear that the alarm was false (no shaking) and everyone can
calm down.

Clearly you feel that the dangers of panic are much higher than I am.
If you really want to defend that posistion, then you must be against
any sort of warning of scary things that is not completely foolproof.

--

Thomas A. Russ                                             tar@isi.edu    
USC/ISI, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey, CA 90292      (310) 822-1511
From: tar@ISI.EDU (Thomas A. Russ)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Earthquake Warnings (was Re: earthquakes during surgery)
Date: 25 Jan 93 21:57:49 GMT
Reply-To: tar@isi.edu
Organization: USC-ISI
In-reply-to: stead@skadi.CSS.GOV's message of 25 Jan 93 21:17:15 GMT

In article <...> stead@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:

 [justification for warnings deleted]

 > Anyway, I think early warning is justified, given the many possible existing
 > uses.  And there are undoubtedly uses that cannot be anticipated.  (the only
 > disadvantages are 1) possibility of panic and

It would seem that given the fairly short warning times possible (on
the order of 5-30 seconds?), that any panic caused by the alarm going
off would be short-lived (or justified :) 

 > 2) possibility of false alarms).

This is much trickier to get right.  If the false alarm rate were too
high, then the alarms would end up being ignored.  I'm not quite sure
what rate of false alarms would be acceptable.

Something along the lines of one or two per year might be tolerable,
although that would still be a large number of false warnings for each
true one.  Damaging earthquakes are really not all that common.  Even
a very accurate (specific) detector for extremely uncommon events will
generate a lot of false alarms.  

Whether this is problematic depends a lot on what actions are taken in
response to the alarm.  Some actions which cause only short term
disruptions (stepping back from the surgery table, moving fire
equipment outdoors) won't be a problem.  Unfortunately, not all of the
possible actions that one would want to take have only short term
ramifications.  If you do an emergency shutdown of a nuclear power
reactor, then you can't just switch it back on a minute later.  The
ramifications can spread much further than just that power plant.
If a lot of computers crash because of power grid problems in response
to false alarms, the economic costs begin to rise.  If this were to
happen once a month, I imagine people would not want to put up with it.

I would also add the problem of adequately testing the system.
Although you can use simulations for a lot of the testing, you won't
really know whether it works or not until a major earthquake strikes.
You might end up having to run the system for a decade or more without
even knowing if it works.

In spite of these reservations, I'd still like to have one for myself
(if the receiver weren't too expensive).


--

Thomas A. Russ                                             tar@isi.edu    
USC/ISI, 4676 Admiralty Way, Marina del Rey, CA 90292      (310) 822-1511
Xref: sparky ca.earthquakes:1630 sci.geo.geology:2806
From: stead@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: Creeping Quakes?
Date: 25 Jan 93 22:12:47 GMT
Distribution: ca

In article <45096@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, jmcd@cea.berkeley.edu (John McDonald) writes:
> 	I am looking at the sfbay.gif file posted with the
> USGS weekly report for the week of January 15.  I notice that
> ther is a cluster of six quakes with a magnitude 2.2 or 
> greater at an apparently single spot near the San Andreas
> east of Watsonville (Hollister?).  It has occurred to me that
> this spot has experienced a large number of small quakes over
> the past several weeks (based on these reports).  Is there 
> any explanation for this?  Should people be concerned about
> the number of small quakes?  I guess no one can make a 
> prediction, and if you sit on the fault, a large number
> of small ones will be unsettling anyway, but i was just
> wondering if there is any research behind this type of
> string of quakes. (note also that this is miles south of
> the epicenter of Loma Prieta)...

That particular region always has small quakes and periodically gets pretty
dense swarms of them.  I'd say nothing to worry about.

To judge whether to worry about a swarm of small quakes requires knowing the
history of the fault at that location.  Some segments of faults undergo
continuous creep - often accompanied by lots of small quakes.  This is
an example of something not to worry about - it is the normal "operation"
of the fault, and probably means the strength of the fault is too low
to support a major quake.  However, if a swarm appears in a region
which has not had any quakes for a long time, this is cause for concern.
It can mean that a fault has been strained to the point where it is
beginning to fail after a long quiesence.  With each small quake, the
fault grows weaker and will eventually fail completely, producing a major
quake.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of faults which can fail without
such warning, making it a poor predictor.  A sudden swarm could also indicate
the onset of volcanic activity.  Finally, there are regions that have
swarms periodically, but are quiet for long times in between.  These regions
apparantly slip entirely by swarms, but are not continuously creeping.
Such swarms may progress along a fault - producing what amounts to as a very
slow earthquake.


--
Richard Stead
Center for Seismic Studies
Arlington, VA
stead@seismo.css.gov
From: tcsmith@cdmg-hq.UUCP (Ted Smith)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Employment Examinations
Date: 27 Jan 93 03:58:09 GMT
X-Maildoor: WaflineMail 1.00r

The California State Water Resources Control Board has announced
open - statewide examinations for Engineering Geologist and Associate
Engineering Geologist.

THE FINAL FILING DATE FOR THESE EXAMINATIONS IS JANUARY 29, 1993.
APPLICATIONS MUST BE POSTMARKED NO LATER THAN THE FINAL FILING DATE.

Copies of the exam announcements and applications are available from:

    STATE WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD
    PERSONNEL & TRAINING
    901 P STREET
    SACRAMENTO, CA 95814
    (916) 657-1738

Sorry for the short notice, but I just received copies of the
announcements today.

In brief, the engineering geologist class is an entry level class
requiring the equivalent of graduation from college with major work in
geology, engineering geology, or a closely related field.  (Geological
experience may be substituted for the required education on a
year-for-year basis.) (Registration as a Senior in a recognized
institution will admit applicants to the examination, but they must
produce evidence of graduation or its equivalent before they can be
considered eligible for appointment.)  Salary: Range A -- $2651-3048;
Range B -- $3035-3659.

The associate engineering geologist class requires the above education
plus additional qualifying experience (as outlined in the announcement).
Salary: $3577-4313.

You may apply for both examinations on the same application form if you
meet the requirements for both.

---
 * QMPro 1.01 41-6306 * Old Macdonald had a computer, with an EIA I/O.
                                                  
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
From: ftc@netcom.com (Entropy Tech.)
Subject: My First Earthquake.... Oh Joy !
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 07:27:45 GMT

Hi all you " Movers and Shakers " :)
I just moved here from the east coast in time for the nifty 5.0
in calavaras....
Ive never been in an earthquake before.. Huricanes, floods, and tunamis yes
but earthquake no. :)

Is it me , or am I feeling smaller quakes on and off in the last 48 hrs?
(19-20 jan ) Not enough to do much more than rattle the bookcase ...

Aslo, being a former Master Control Engineer for several Broadcast TV
stations... Im familiar with the EBS system.. BUt Im curious to know how
it works here in cali. as far as earthquakes go. 
The one time I really remember using EBS ( or being ready to )was when 
I was in mississippi durring huricane andrews near miss.

But I digress
Dos anyone have the procedure script for the PCPS in this area?
or even the name of the TV and Radio primaries ?

Thanks.
		Frank " Blowing tone in :30 !! " Clark

( FYI : Blowing tone : (slang, broadcast ) to activate the 
                       2 tone EBS signal .. music!         )


Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
From: hank@netcom.com (Hank Roberts)
Subject: Re: Creeping Quakes?
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Distribution: ca
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 03:54:19 GMT


Count me another Hayward-worried reader.

Sometime a year or two ago, a writer posted that he had submitted
a journal article about how quakes 'creep up the Calaveras til they
get a fairly big quake at Livermore, then the quakes start at the
south end of the Hayward and begin to creep northward and get bigger.'

That was, I vaguely recall, a conclusion from watching animations of
quake sequences on a map.  I kept hoping to hear more; does that notion
ring any bells for anyone?