Quake to Hit Los Angeles By September 5th (6.4 Richter or Higher)

Actually, I think that the San Andreas Fault in on the other side of the mountains from Pasadena, in the high desert. I also live next to Pasadena and there are many faults all around us, but the Big One is east and north of us.

You guys should move here to Tornado alley instead. At least you can see tornadoes coming before they hit you...

Yeah, but with a quake, you may get a few cracks in the driveway, with one of those twisters from OZ, your house and all your belongings are scattered over three counties. I've BBQd through quakes, try that with a twister coming down the street with cows flying around.

The Russian-born seismologist at UCLA is predicting timing and magnitude of a projected earthquake. A Finnish-born seismologist at USC is doubtful.

The Russians and the Finns hate each other. UCLA and USC are rival schools.

I'm placing my money on the Trojans. They had a better year than the Bruins.

The original Richter scale was logrithmic. Since crustal rocks are incapable of storing enough energy to release a "10.5" earthquake, the only way you could get such a seismic event would be from an asteroid impact.

Well this stinks.

Let me add, however, there has been legitimate talk about a "mega-quake" in California. The scenario is this:

There are three main segments of the San Andreas fault. The northern segment which runs from the Mendocino Fracture zone south to about Parkfield last had a great quake in 1906. The "Big Bend" segment which runs from Parkfield south to the vicinity of the El Cajon Pass near San Bernadino moved in the 1857 Fort Tejon quake. The southern section of the San Andreas bifurcates and trends down into the reminent spreading center in the Gulf of California. (Some researchers believe that the plate boundary there is "jumping" westward in an attempt to "straighten out" the Big Bend caused by the collision of the Pacific plate with the North American plate.)

Each of the three major segments of the fault seems to operate separately from the others - which is to say, no two have ever ruptured together. There is good reason to believe that any earthquake on the San Andreas would have a finite limit of shaking (3 to 5 minutes based on past experience) and the length of the rupture.

The mega-quake would involve one segment triggering a sympathetic quake on a neighboring segments or segments! The shaking amplitude would not be higher than one would expect in a solitary great quake, but the duration of shaking could be considerably longer.

You are correct. An earthquake is a "temblor." Michael J Fox is a "trembler."

This is true in more than one language. In 1812, there were several earthquakes recorded by the Mission Fathers in Alta California. A couple of the large temblors badly wrecked and even destroyed some of the Missions. Thereafter, 1812 was known in the journals as the "Ano de los Temblores" - the year of the earthquakes.

You left out the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake. magnitude 5.9. I was right on top of that one. And I'm still pissed it wasn't determined to be a 6.0!

The 1906 San Francisco quake had a maximum lateral offset of about 21 feet (6.4 m) near Bolinas. This figure is well-documented from fence offsets and stream diversions.

The 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake had maximum lateral offset of about 30 feet (9 m), but is less well-constrained than the 1906 event and is based on primarilly geomorphic evidence.

The Owens Valley (Lone Pine) earthquake of 1872 must have been a whopper. The total displacement is 30 to 50 feet (9 to 15 m) where a road crosses the scarp. The earthquake also produced 12 foot (4 m) of net vertical offset near Lone Pine, Inyo County. Like the 1857 event, there were no good contemporary scientific accounts. The offsets are calculated from geomorphic features (and thus, may possibly represent more than one event in the same location).

Oops. When I replied to your #16 (as my #124) I had not scrolled down to this one. Asteroid impact. Great minds... {;^)

As I recall, there were three large events associated with the New Madrid sequence. Since these happened during the winter of 1811-1812, there were obviously no scientific measurements. However, accounts of the earthquakes suggest that they were "continental" in nature ("rang church bells in Boston," etc.). The pattern of desturction suggest quakes on the highest level of intensity (Mercalli XII).

I have relative in western Tennessee and have seen the "ghost forests" at Reelfoot Lake. Purportedly, the lake filled an earthquake-formed graben, by diverting the flow of the Mississippi River. Contemporary accounts have the part of the river just down stream from Reelfoot Lake flowing BACKWARD overnight to fill the newly-formed low ground. Just a review of topographic maps of the area suggest that this was entirely possible.

The San Andreas Fault is not near Pasadena. That's where the USGS Seismological lab is located (Cal Tech, on California Ave.). If you want to see the fault, just drive out to Palmdale. There's a nice road cut near the aquaduct and lake on Highway 14. The road is cut through a low ridge. On the other side are some soccer fields. The ridge is the fault zone.

This is good for Bush.

Part of the war on terra, dontcha know...

BUMP

She's a babe and a half. They say women begin to resemble their mothers as they get older. I can only hope...

Let me explain my position in the controversial field of science in which we are involved. It is difficult for me to believe that I am right and the great men with great reputations say otherwise. However, this is not the first time in the history of science that such a thing has happened. In fact it is more the rule.

First let me talk about complex function theory (CFT). (As near as I can determine this has no relation to complex adaptive systems mentioned in "The Quark And The Jaguar." Gell-Mann.) CFT is a mathematical theory developed first by La Place (I believe) to predict the flow of heat. Chapter V in the book by Milne-Thompson, which you have, is a pretty good review of the subject. You do not have to know this material for us to make progress. Many people caused significant progress in CFT and they did not know the details. Also many famous men have added to the use of CFT and applied it to the flow of electricity, fluids and other things which obey LaPlace's equation (del^2 phi = 0). When I entered the field in 1947, CFT was still being developed. In fact it was 1966 when the ability to get the solution for the potential flow about arbitrary shapes was made possible by AMO Smith and John Hess at Douglas.

Since then some guys at Northrop and at Van Every & Associates (VE&A) made some significant innovative applications of CFT. Some of these applications still have not been properly brought into use on the "front lines" of engineering. I find myself in possession of some of these methods and no one to share them with. Further advances in the field can not be made without more people understanding and working on the application of these techniques. CFT can be used to improve airplane and ship design, weather prediction, earthquake prediction and surely other problems.

I have found that many top scientists and engineers are not aware of this possibility. I blame the use of large main frame computers to solve flow field problems by detailed network calculations for this paradox. It has made the understanding and manipulation of the basic equations seem unnecessary. I have talked to many top people at universities, government and industry and they have not kept their awareness of the power of CFT in the everyday world of engineering. I do not believe they have to know the details of CFT manipulation themselves. There are plenty of good mathematicians who can carry out the nitty gritty work of applications.

I also believe the Internet environment created by software designers for instant communications has made it impossible to do the trial and error "broken field running" required to solve the tough problems. I think we should get together and discuss this matter and figure how to get some more people working on this very important approach. I will go to San Diego or anywhere in SoCal any time to discuss and debate, if necessary, this subject.

Now for the big topic: the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. I can't believe that the intricate reasoning by the high priests of science trying to bring quantum theory into the 2nd Law has left us without a means to get numbers for the effort required to do creative work that does not involve energy. The use of entropy to guide us in our work was understood in 1900. I don't believe it is necessary to use quantum concepts to solve problems of aerodynamics, chemistry, mechanics, heat flow or any process where sub atomic processes are not involved. More important social, political, health, computer usage and many other problems are not covered.

Our world is getting more and more chaotic because of the lack of entropy numbers in our daily world. Can we discuss this problem. Can we get together with others who claim to know the 2nd Law and thrash this out. I claim the world ain't going to work right until we get this straight. Sorry if I have to disagree with the high priests of science but it is obvious that the world is not now working right. Right?

Hamlet said:
"The time is out of joint. Oh cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right."
I say:
"The time is out of joint. Oh happy plight,
That we now know how to set it right."

Let's do it!
Maurice (FARMER GATES) Cahn

Do all the inhabitants of the earth have to sit in complete ignorance of where the next earthquake might occur? Absolutely not. The use of fundamental math and physics can guide a way forward. The rules of information theory are not even considered for most problems. The recent event in Turkey where tens of thousands have been killed and injured could have been better predicted than it was. Geological experts have appeared in the media to proclaim that better prediction is impossible. We do not agree!

Better earthquake prediction can be had. There is an electrical flow field in the ground which very clearly responds to the earth's crustal stress changes. This has been proven by several well known and experienced scientists and engineers. These men have used methods that they had developed for the analysis of high speed airflow on airplanes. They were all involved in the early days of aircraft development which led to today's transonic and supersonic commercial and military aircraft.

Geologists are attempting to use the earth's electric and electromagnetic field to predict quakes but they are not aware of the classical mathematical and physical phenomena involved in flow field analysis. There exists theoretical and experimental data to prove that proper analysis of the earth's electrical flow field will give better earthquake prediction. We, the Landers Search Lab Corporation, have this data and we challenge all experts to analyze our methods. To date none have. Only broad comments without the benefit of careful scientific inspection of the physics, math and computer programming we used have been made. We realize that there are many who claim that they can predict quakes by the barking of dogs or some other vague phenomena, but we are well recognized experienced scientists and engineers. Please! Give us a break!

Chinese seismologists from the State Seismological Bureau in Beijing have written us that they agree with our approach. They requested that we work together on this program but no one in the USA has agreed to cooperate. More information on this for the non technical layman is available. Almost anyone who can read can understand the basic ideas involved.

Please contact us for further information:
Maurice S. Cahn, Director of Research

Landers Search Lab Corporation
Post Office Box 3854
Landers, CA 92285 mcahn1@mindspring.com

Our methods probably require much more discussion. We are prepared for an in depth review of the math and physics of our work. Here some technical points to start the disussion:
Electrical flow fields are identical to non viscous fluid flow fields. The lack of viscosity in the electrical fields makes them much simpler to analyze.
Although the detail variation of the earth's electrical field with time is very erratic, Fourier analysis has shown that the quasi static daily, weekly and monthly flow patterns are very consistent and closely associated with crustal stress build up.
The variation in resistivity of the earth is a function of position. In fluid flows the variation in density, which is exactly analogous to resistivity, is a function of local velocity. The primary problem for high speed airflow was how to handle the variations in density. Methods were developed for transonic airplane flight which apply directly to electrical fields with the changes in resistivity which occurs in the earth.
Due to the lack of a suitable reference, it is impossible to measure the absolute value of the voltage at a point. However, the electrical flow field is an harmonic function for which all space derivatives exist. Therefore, by measuring the spacial derivative at a location, the complete character of the field can be ascertained.

If Gene Hackman starts buying up desert land in anticipation of it becoming oceanfront property, head for the hills!

Yeah, and watch out if you see any signs that say "Welcome to Otisberg" too....

Could this be a publicity stunt timed to co-incide with NBC's new mini-series, which is called 10.5 and airs next week (in time for the first week of sweeps)?