Subject: Re: Interesting New Theory
From: hatunen@netcom.com (DaveHatunen)
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 23:33:34 GMT
In article <323188CB.308A@cris.com>, Al Chan wrote:
>Why is it that Foster City, Calif, suffered little damage for the last
>30 years since the city was built on mud flats; whereas the surrounding
>cities experienced much more damages?
What surrounding cities? Redwood City? San Mateo?
In that 30 years there has only been one earthquake of significance for
Foster City, namely Loma Prieta. One swallow does not a summer make,
and it would be ill-advised to base any public policy on non-damage
from that earthquake. See, for instance, the "On Shakey Ground" maps
available at the ABAG web site
http://www.abag.ca.gov/bayarea/eqmaps/pickcity.html
Pick "Foster City" and "Materials".
--
********** DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@netcom.com) **********
* Daly City California *
* Between San Francisco and South San Francisco *
*******************************************************
Subject: Re: slow-motion earthquakes
From: Bill Smith
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 16:57:17 -0700
Thomas A. Russ wrote:
>
> In article mcorman@netcom.com (Mary Corman) writes:
>
> > My first reaction while reading the local article about the 1992
> > slow-moving earthquake was to wonder why nearby residents weren't
> > told about the recorded earth movement so they could check for any
> > possible leaks in sprinkler system pipe connections, etc.,
>
Mary, I believe you still owe Mr. Russ an apology. And you
haven't answered my question which was why and upon what basis do you
have
to reach the conclusion that the USGS is withholding information of any
sort?
If you are fearful of a large impending earthquake, you are probably
justified.
However, no one has established any record of determining when or where
such
a quake will occur.
Plate techtonics is a new science, it is much younger than, for example,
computers,
and not very much is known yet. Witness the information recently
discovered
regarding the suspected viscocity of the earth's core.
73 de Bill, AB6MT
bilsmith@crl.com
Subject: Re: slow-motion earthquakes
From: mcorman@netcom.com (Mary Corman)
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 01:33:41 GMT
Thomas A. Russ (tar@ISI.EDU) wrote:
: ... Do you have any evidence to suggest that such damage
: occurred as a result of this earthquake? Or are you just making much
: ado about nothing?
Do you have evidence to prove that no damage resulted or could have
resulted from a 4.8-equivalent earthquake?
: Why? Do you really want to be informed about all earth movements that
: don't affect the surface of the earth? I suppose one could arrange to
: automatically EMail you thousands of "don't worry about damage from
: earth movement X" reports, but I would hardly imagine that would be
: useful.
I do want to know about events beneath my property. That motion
wasn't in this vicinity, but if it occurs here, will anyone tell us?
: Most newspapers have a moderator (ie editor) -- unlike this newsgroup --
: whose job it is to decide what information should go in to the paper at
: any particular time.
But how can any editor decide whether to publish information if he
or she doesn't have it? Until posts are submitted, a moderator
has no decisions to make.
: Again, what rational basis do you have for asserting this bizarre
: conspiracy theory? Why do you think there were any personal safety or
: property damage issues involved at all? It's been four years, can you
: cite any damage or injury or anything at all related to this event? If
: you can't then I'm quite happy having the USGS spend their money on
: furthering their understanding of the earth's geologic processes and not
: on producing press releases that say basically:
: "We detected a curious phenomenon that nobody could feel and that
: wouldn't cause damage."
Again... do you know there WASN'T damage? I'm not asserting any
"conspiracy theory" - just asking a question that the recent
newspaper report didn't cover. If you drank contaminated water
and became sick but didn't know where you picked up the bacteria
or what kind it was, would that absolve public health agencies
from responsibility to announce that the water supply was unsafe?
Had you known the cause, you could have sought the appropriate
treatment sooner and spent less time away from your research.
We can't always see or feel smog, but agencies still report
levels that are above normal.
Many people who elect Congresspersons are most interested in
what happens to them and to their families now or in the near
future. Giving them facts when they become known can provide
a local reason significant to them for funding the equipment
and salaries needed to do further research. (You could define
that as conspiracy, too, if you're in that frame of mind.)
--
Mary Corman
mcorman@netcom.com marycorman@aol.com tybg72a@prodigy.com
Subject: Re: Authentic Armenian Cuisine Recipes
From: mwcoen@hooked.net (Mike Coen)
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 07:01:47 GMT
On 9 Sep 1996 21:05:15 GMT, prof@fresnet (professor) wrote:
>Authentic Armenian Cuisine Recipes
>Learn how to make "Kufta" send a self addressed stamped envelope with
>$1.00 to:
>Kachadoorian’s Kitchen
>XXXX E. Trenton
>Fresno Ca. 93720
NNTP-Posting-Host: usr2-2-ppp2.pub.csufresno.edu
Per WHOIS:
California State University at Fresno (CSUFRESNO-DOM)
Fresno, CA 93740
Domain Name: CSUFRESNO.EDU
Administrative Contact:
Wynne, Gail (GW97) gail_wynne@csufresno.edu
(209) 278-3923
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Tucker, Roger W. (RWT4) roger_tucker@CSUFRESNO.EDU
(209) 278-3923
Mike
http://www.hooked.net/~mwcoen/
Subject: Re: Earthquake Country book out
From: gentryd@pipeline.com
Date: 11 Sep 1996 05:25:38 GMT
In article , DaveHatunen writes:
>For those interested: Iakopi's update of Sunset's old Earthquake Country
>book is out now, and I just picked up the copy I ordered from Stacey's
>here in Palo Alto. Looks pretty informative, and is updated through the
>Northridge and Kobe quakes.
>
>Doesn't include those great aerial photos with the pink swatch through
>them, though, so my area of Daly City is no longer in there. Since a
>lot more houses have been built in that band that was colored pink...
Dave,
Went down to Barnes and Knoble to inquire about the book and the
latest edition that they are showing is dated 1995. Is that right?
Thanks,
Dennis
Subject: Re: WELL! (Mr. Turi is a complete fraud)
From: LincMad@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison)
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 01:43:52 -0700
In article <515kfr$lf5@mtinsc01-mgt.ops.worldnet.att.net>,
Dr.Turi@worldnet.att.net (Mr. Turi) wrote:
> Well, today is 9/11 in Japan........Tokyo has a 6.6 earthquake,
> centered
> in the Pacific.....with a Tsunanmi warning. You were at least on the
> right side of the world on this.
You still haven't explained how you MISSED the much LARGER 7.1 earthquake
earlier in the week, that was completely OUTSIDE all of your "windows."
You are a fraud and a charlatan.
--
** Unsolicited commercial Email delivered to this address will be
subject to a $1500 charge. Emailing such items, whether manually or
automatically, constitutes acceptance of these terms & conditions.**
Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * LincMad@Eureka.vip.best.com
Subject: Re: slow-motion earthquakes
From: gentryd@pipeline.com
Date: 11 Sep 1996 05:28:17 GMT
In article <3236005D.602E@crl.com>, Bill Smith writes:
>And you
>haven't answered my question which was why and upon what basis do you
>have
>to reach the conclusion that the USGS is withholding information of any
>sort?
Here is a sampling from a question posed by Jking back on 8/21/96
that still hasn't been responded too. I know that seismologists
are busy and it might take a few days for them to respond, but
this one has gone, what, 3 weeks so far?
>
>On the other hand, some of the California data on the same page
>looks a bit weird; check out the vector given for SIO3-PVEP on the
>map. Huh? Now, the data (but not the map) has been updated fairly
>recently, so, just for fun, I tried to verify the slip rate on the
>San Jacinto Fault, and get about 15.6 mm/yr pointed in the right
>direction (that's PINY-MATH, for what it's worth). But anything I
>try to calculate involving either MONP or SIO3 still gives weird
>answers; for example, to update the map point for SIO3:
>
>SIO3-PVEP (new)
>north 3.12 mm/yr
>east 5.12 mm/yr
>----------------
>rate 6.00 mm/yr, ENE
>
>Boy, that's pretty fast, and basically perpendicular to the known
>(strike slip) faults in the region. Any idea what's going on here?
Dennis
Subject: Re: slow-motion earthquakes
From: gentryd@pipeline.com
Date: 11 Sep 1996 05:26:10 GMT
In article <514ehp$l7p@nntp.Stanford.EDU>, Chuck Karish writes:
>>But then it took Frazier-Smith about a year, give or take a couple
>>of months, to report his findings on the Parkfield 5.0 of Dec. '94.
>
>Different journals, different policies, different delays.
>Abstracts for talks often show up as soon as six months after
>an observation. On the other hand, they're not reviewed and
>the findings reported in the abstract are often retracted
>in the actual talk.
>
>There are fast-track journals like Physical Review Letters
>and, to a lesser extent, EOS that get can information
>out quickly. It's up to the reader to recognize that this
>information may not be as reliable as what's published after
>a full review.
>
>>But then the general public doesn't know about these published
>>abstracts nor where to find them if they do know about them.
>>
>>I wonder why I've never heard of the paper that you published
>>this last spring?
>
>That's a question for a science journalist, not for a scientist. If
>the information is published ANYWHERE, it's not being hidden.
>It's the journalist's job to keep track of what's important and
>what's generally interesting. Scientific organizations like the
>USGS and JPL have active press offices, so the obviously
>provocative stories don't slip through the cracks.
Chuck,
I agree, but your response doesn't answer the rest of my post
that you snipped as follows:
>
>Information doesn't need to wait on having all of the i's dotted
>and the t's crossed. If something is being observed, it doesn't
>hurt for the public to be aware that something is being observed
>thru some press release.
>
>Did a panic situation happen with the Calavaras movement? No.
>If anything, people probably got themselves a little more prepared.
Thanks,
Dennis
Subject: Re: Science in media (longish) (was Re: slow-motion earthquakes)
From: "Philip L. Fradkin"
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 1996 00:47:39 +0000
Wonderful! At last we have a discussion going that deals with
something other than predictions and procedure.
I rest my case, at least for the moment, concerning lucid writing by
seismologists disappearing when numbers took over with the widespread
advent of seismographs by making the following comparison:
The report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission on the
1906 earthquake, written by Andrew C. Lawson, versus, say, the special
issue on the Loma Prieta Earthquake published by the Bulletin of the
Seismological Society of America in October, 1991. I haven't read the
special issue on the Northridge quake yet.
Something changed during the intervening years. I wonder what it was?
The irony is that many of the 1906 commission members were founders of
the society.
I hope that from time to time I can throw out some ideas that I am
wrestling with in my book on earthquakes and the San Andreas Fault
and get some thoughtful replies. I am a layperson who lives adjacent
to the fault line and within one mile of where movement was greatest
in 1906.
My query, and I am supposing the question of many other California
residents is: am I a fool for living here? My complaint, and I have
read a fair amount of the literature, is that I don't see the people
who may have partial answers, such as seismologists, addressing such
basic questions. They are, for the most part, recipients of public
funds and involved in a science that should primarily address public
safety. But I may be wrong.
Philip L. Fradkin
filfrad@nbn.com
Subject: Re: slow-motion earthquakes
From: gentryd@pipeline.com
Date: 11 Sep 1996 05:27:58 GMT
In article <3236005D.602E@crl.com>, Bill Smith writes:
>Mary, I believe you still owe Mr. Russ an apology.
I don't. I feel that Mr. Russ was off base with his rebuttal. If
anybody owes anybody an apology, you owe Mary Corman an apology for
publicly demanding that she apologize for being honest and sincere
in her responses.
>Plate techtonics is a new science, it is much younger than, for example,
>computers,
Huh? You mean computers were around in 1900?
>and not very much is known yet. Witness the information recently
>discovered
>regarding the suspected viscocity of the earth's core.
Not to mention the rock discovered up in the Swiss Alps with
crystal formations that only could have been from 400 miles
down in the earth. Something that some people from UC Riverside
discovered. Haven't heard too much on it though.
If this is true, I wonder what it does to the plate tectonic
theory. ????
Dennis
Subject: Publishing Scholarly Work on the Web -- opinion anyone?
From: "N. Gat"
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 23:03:07 -0700
Subject: Publishing Scholarly Work on the Web -- opinion anyone?
I'd appreciate any pro and con arguments on the subject of this letter.
Since this matter touches upon all the sci.*, many comp.* and other
newsgroups, I'll try to cross post this message.
The TechExpo Web site would like to open up a ScienceExpo section
dedicated to the publication of scholarly works in HTML format (TechExpo
already provides an array of services to the science & technology
community; see http://www.techexpo.com).
THE RATIONALE IS AS FOLLOWS:
1) The peer-review process of scientific journals may take from many
months to over a year.
2) The review process is often arbitrary in nature.
3) The access to the work is limited because many libraries do not carry
the journal, or it is too expensive for an individual subscription
4) A journal in any field carries work that is much broader than that of
individual researcher or engineer so important papers are often obscured
because they do not quite belong in any particular journal.
5) Because of the multi-disciplinary nature of technology and science,
some topic have applicability in more than one field, and no journal or
conference may cover such broad fields.
6) Papers posted at ScienceExpo will be searchable not only by key
words, but the author will be able to select any number of applicability
categories from a list of over 400 existing categories (see the TechExpo
classification schedule).
7) papers will be searchable via all the Web search engines.
8) The author can still submit the posted paper to refereed journals.
PUBLICATIONS AT ScienceExpo WILL:
a) Appear within 48 hours of submittal
b) The paper will be immediately available to the entire community
c) The paper will indexed and could be found by all researchers via the
Internet search engines, or internal ScienceExpo search tools (using any
keyword, author name, institution name, etc.)
d) The author can select any number of fields of science and technology
form a list of over 400 (see TechExpo Classification Schedule) to reach
the target audience much broader than any one journal can
e) Authors can hot-link all references directly from their paper
f) On-line discussion of papers can be conducted within the appropriate
UseNet groups
g) Papers may be copies and printed or forwarded to others
electronically or by other means.
SOME PROPOSED GROUND RULES:
(A) Work submitted must be of original nature and of value to science or
technology
(B) The paper must carry the full names of the authors and institution,
including address, phone number, fax, and e-mail.
(C) Ethical conduct: Papers posted at ScienceExpo should be treated as
any other publication. They represent the scientific work of colleagues
and should be treated as such. If information is quoted, the proper
reference should be given credit.
(D) When copying, forwarding, etc., the entire paper, including the
authors information, institution, as well as the ScienceExpo source
should be included.
Obviously ScienceExpo will not referee papers; the authors' names and
the institution they represent are put on the line -- so posting papers
ON-LINE should be given as much or more care and thought as submitting a
paper to prestigious journals
A FEW TECHNICALITIES:
(i) The entire paper must be submitted in HTML, and graphs, figures and
charts in gif or jpg format (this is a deviation from common formats
requiring PostScript or TEX, to allow viewing papers using the
newsreader built into popular browsers, and to allow indexing such
papers by all the Web search engines)
(ii) Maximum size for text files and graphics will have to be observed
(iii) Equation should be edited using the HTML specifications, or
scanned and pasted as graphics files
(iv) It is the author's responsibility to secure authorization of the
institution and/or the research funding authority to submit the
publication.
Finally here is the most sticky point. If the service if totally free
of charge, I'm concerned there will be a deluge of frivolous
publishing. I consider a fee structure to act as a "potential
Barrier." A low, yet significant fee (hopefully) will discourage the
unwarranted publications, but will not be too high to discourage worthy
publications. Perhaps academic institutions will receive a discount,
but corporations will pay somewhat higher fee also to defray the costs
of the service.
So one question is whether a fee imposed on publication will completely
stifle interest? Is for example, a one-time publication fee of $400 for
a corporation, and $100 for academia too high a fee?
One more comment as to why should TechExpo do this. In my opinion
technical societies (and I belong to a few) could do the job but the
problem of cross discipline relevance will not be solved. So being
unaffiliated with any technical society or technical magazine, TechExpo
is a neutral ground most appropriate for this job. What's more,
TechExpo is already providing technology and science information for
almost two years.
Is this idea totally freakish?
Well, the floor is now open for debate.
Private communications are welcomed but posted comments/debate is
preferred.
Nahum Gat, Ph.D.
President
Opto-Knowledge Systems, Inc. (OKSI)
Web: http://www.techexpo.com/WWW/opto-knowledge
E-mail: oksi@cerfnet.com
or
nahum@techexpo.com
Subject: Re: Science in media (longish) (was Re: slow-motion earthquakes)
From: salzberg@seismo.CSS.GOV (David Salzberg)
Date: 11 Sep 1996 10:58:35 GMT
In article <32360C2B.6B91@nbn.com>, "Philip L. Fradkin" writes:
|> The report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission on the
|> 1906 earthquake, written by Andrew C. Lawson, versus, say, the special
|> issue on the Loma Prieta Earthquake published by the Bulletin of the
|> Seismological Society of America in October, 1991. I haven't read the
|> special issue on the Northridge quake yet.
The issue is not the quality of writing, it is the evolution of the
science of seismology. In 1910, seismology was a qualitative science.
That means that the discussions and debates were based on descriptive
concepts. Today, seismology is a quantitative science. The debates
involve models and thier applicability. Discussions of a quantitative
nature are always a little harder to read (at first). For example,
in 1910, the discussion would have been on how strong the shaking was and
how big the surface rupture was. Today, equivelant discussions would be
comparisons of the observed strong motion to the theoretical ground motion
computed using a variety of models. Instead of talking about how big
the surface rupture is, we would talk about the overall seismic moment and
the slip distribution.
|> My query, and I am supposing the question of many other California
|> residents is: am I a fool for living here? My complaint, and I have
|> read a fair amount of the literature, is that I don't see the people
|> who may have partial answers, such as seismologists, addressing such
|> basic questions. They are, for the most part, recipients of public
|> funds and involved in a science that should primarily address public
|> safety. But I may be wrong.
Are you a fool for living in california? That is a personal question.
It depends on what you value. If you are terified of earthquakes, then yes.
If you have learned to live with them, maybe no.
I would not live in southern California (LA at least) because I hate
traffic. Unfortunately, I live in the Washington DC area and still hit bad
traffic.
David
--
David Salzberg salzberg@seismo.css.gov
Sliding down the slippery slope to oblivion...
All opinions are mine unless otherwise noted.
Subject: Re: communications (was Re: slow-motion earthquakes
From: salzberg@seismo.CSS.GOV (David Salzberg)
Date: 11 Sep 1996 11:02:54 GMT
In article <515ik4$6c5@news1.t1.usa.pipeline.com>, gentryd@pipeline.com writes:
|>
|> In this case, seismologists are already spending time doing
|> the ground work.
|>
|> It would take a few minutes to write a quick note about it
|> and pass it on (to where ever) to get published or put up on
|> a web page by somebody else. Hence only a few precious minutes
|> lost by seismologists.
|>
|> Dennis
Dennis,
it does not take a few minutes to communicate these concepts in a
manner that they will not be misunderstood -- at least a lot
longer (ut then, I am not a particularly good writer).
That is why I don't post more here. 1 year ago, when I tried to
contribute more to this organization, I found that I was spending
3 to 4 hours a day (after work) with this group. The effort
required to write one good article is long. Try it some time.
David
--
David Salzberg salzberg@seismo.css.gov
Sliding down the slippery slope to oblivion...
All opinions are mine unless otherwise noted.