Seismic activity charts are readily available for the US. How available are they for the rest of the world? I’m internet challenged and could use some help researching world wide seismic activity for June 15.
Internet earthquake sites do not depict any 6.1 quake off florida. Keep the tinfoil tightly strapped on.
Came across this organizing:
Quake to hit LA 'by Sept 5'
April 15, 2004 - 2:13PM
AFP
Kohler And Chase Piano Building burning in the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Photo: Steunbrugge Collection, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University Of California, Berkley
A US geophysicist has set the scientific world ablaze by claiming to have cracked a holy grail: accurate earthquake prediction, and warning that a big one will hit southern California by September 5.
Russian-born University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) professor Vladimir Keilis-Borok says he can foresee major quakes by tracking minor temblors and historical patterns in seismic hotspots that could indicate more violent shaking is on the way.
And he has made a chilling prediction that a quake measuring at least 6.4 magnitude on the Richter scale will hit a 31,200-square-kilometre area of southern California by September 5.
The team at UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics accurately predicted a 6.5-magnitude quake in central California last December as well as an 8.1-magnitude temblor that struck the Japanese island of Hokkaido in September.
"Earthquake prediction is called the Holy Grail of earthquake science, and has been considered impossible by many scientists," said Keilis-Borok, 82.
"It is not impossible.
"We have made a major breakthrough, discovering the possibility of making predictions months ahead of time, instead of years, as in previously known methods."
If accurate, the prediction method would be critical in an area like California, which is criss-crossed by fault lines that have spawned devastating quakes over the years including ones which ravaged San Francisco in 1989 and Los Angeles in 1994.
That has given credence to his research, which was endorsed by a state panel, the California Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council, earlier this month.
"Even two years back it was practically a dirty word to say earthquake prediction," said Nancy Sauer, an organiser of the annual conference of the Seismological Society of America which began yesterday in Palm Springs.
The UCLA team - made up of US, Japanese, Canadian, European and Russian experts in pattern recognition, geodynamics, seismology, chaos theory, statistical physics and public safety - says it has developed algorithms to detect earthquake patterns.
The experts predicted in June an earthquake measuring 6.4 or higher would strike within nine months in a 496-kilometre region of central California, including San Simeon, where a 6.5-magnitude temblor struck December 22, killing two people.
In July, they said they predicted a magnitude 7.0 or higher quake in a region that included Hokkaido by December 28. The September 25 quake fell within that period.
Now they predict a major quake will hit an area that stretches across desert regions to the east of Los Angeles, home to around nine million people, including the Mojave desert and the resort town of Palm Springs, which lies near the notorious San Andreas fault.
That is where experts began gathering for the Seismological Society of America conference that looks sure to be dominated by passionate discussion of Keilis-Borok's prediction method.
"There is something going on," Sauer told the Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs. "People are at least willing to entertain the idea. It is not seen so much as junk science now."
Another seismic expert, University of Oregon professor Ray Weldon, was scheduled to present findings to the conference that appear to support Keilis-Borok's research by saying the San Andreas fault is about to enter a new and violent period of shaking.
The data, according to the Desert Sun, was gathered over 18 years around the famed fault, showing it is under high levels of stress.
"You could consider that support (for Keilis-Borok's research)," Weldon was quoted as saying. "But I dont lend any insight or support to a window of time."
But researchers still point to the fact that the science of earthquake prediction has been notoriously inaccurate and the geographic area targeted by the UCLA team for an imminent quake is very large.
"It is not specific," said Susan Hough, a seismologist for the US Geological Survey based in Pasadena, near Los Angeles. "They've made three predictions and two of them have been borne out."
Keilis-Borok himself acknowledged the caution expressed by some of his colleagues. "Application of non-linear dynamics and chaos theory is often counter-intuitive, so acceptance by some research teams will take time."
But if his latest prediction that the earth will move in the area around Los Angeles within the next five months proves accurate, his research could end up saving lives and transforming seismology.
KTVU News:
Scientists Predict Major SoCal Quake Within Five Months
POSTED: 3:07 pm PST April 1, 2004
UPDATED: 3:27 am PST April 2, 2004
LOS ANGELES -- A state earthquake council has given a qualified endorsement to a prediction by a group of scientists who believe that a temblor of magnitude-6.4 or greater will occur in the Southern California desert sometime in the next five months.
The California Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council, a group of eight scientists selected by the state Office of Emergency Services, said it considers the new prediction by the scientists to be "a legitimate approach in earthquake prediction research."
Despite its support the panel noted in a report that "the physical basis for the prediction has not been substantiated."
The team of scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, predict that a quake will occur within a 12,000-square-mile area east of Los Angeles by Sept. 5. The zone includes a large swath of the Mojave Desert, the Coachella Valley, the Imperial Valley and eastern San Diego County.
The area was the location of the magnitude-7.3 Landers earthquake in 1992 and the 7.1 Hector Mine quake in 1999.
The zone is so seismically active that the council noted in its report that the chances of an earthquake of at least magnitude-6.4 occurring randomly in the area sometime before the Sept. 5 deadline is about 10 percent.
The council concluded that the results do not warrant any special public policy actions in California. Such actions could include warnings to the public or alerts issued to utilities to help them prevent disruptions in service.
The scientists piqued interest after they forecast the magnitude-6.5 San Simeon quake in December and the magnitude-8.1 quake last year off Japan's Hokkaido island. In both cases, the group set wide parameters in place and time.
The team bases its predictions on long chains of small earthquakes recorded in the area.
"In the vicinity of each such chain, we look backward and see its history over the preceding years -- whether our candidate (for an earthquake) was preceded by certain seismicity patterns," said lead team scientist Vladimir Keilis-Borok. "If yes, we accept the candidate as a short-term precursor and start a nine-month alarm."