Newsgroup sci.geo.earthquakes 6465

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Gerard Fryer (gerard@hawaii.edu) wrote:
: An hypothesis is just an idea, a suggestion, purporting to explain or
: predict some phenomenon. An hypothesis may be inspired by facts, or it
: may be just a wacky idea. A theory is different. A theory is a working
: hypothesis supported by a preponderance of the data. In other words,
: once you have subjected your wacky idea to validation, if it has
: performed reasonably well, you can start refering to it as a theory.
: Whether others regard it as a theory usually depends on how well it
: performs against competing theories. In any field there is usually one
: prevailing theory which stands out against a bunch of alternate
: hypotheses. As more information comes in, the theory may be modified,
: or it may become apparent that one of the other hypotheses fits the
: data better, or some new all-encompassing idea which explains all those
: forgotten and ignored little details may suddenly explode onto the
: scene. The key is the constant reference back to data (our vision of
: reality). Through constant appeal to the data, science lurches towards
: the truth. 
[remainder deleted to save space]
Thanks, Gerard -
That helps. Language is imprecise sometimes, so words are used
in different ways by people in different vocations. As mentioned
earlier, I'm not a scientist. My husband was a theoretical
physicist but couldn't discuss his work, so my personal impression
was that theorists use math and computer models and experimentalists 
more often work in labs or with other equipment. I would have 
guessed that those who develop theories might need to rely on 
experimentalists to help prove the usefulness or validity of their 
theories.  But other posts here seem to suggest that whoever 
proposes an idea (whether called hypothesis or theory) is solely 
responsible for proving or disproving it. 
Was that procedure followed when cold fusion was publicized?
From what I saw in newspapers and online at that time, it looked 
like scientists0 at labs in many places around the world quickly 
tried to duplicate those experiments even though their theories 
suggested that it was impossible. Does the amount of publicity
given to a hypothesis affect how much interest other scientists
take in helping to prove or disprove it?
-- 
Mary Corman    
mcorman@netcom.com     marycorman@aol.com    tybg72a@prodigy.com

To Those Interested:
Dew point thought says that when the atmosphere is filling with charges 
and very high tides occur, there is less atmosphere for the charge and a 
greater chance of an EM earthquake to occur. This post relates more to 
time than location. If one does occur along the West Coast, it will occur 
within several hours of the high tide that follows a plus low tide. The 
higher tides range in the 8 to 10 ft. range. FYI Both Northridge and Loma 
Prieta occurred in the period when low tides were in the plus range. I'm 
pretty sure high tide in the Bay Area was right about the time of the Loma 
Prieta quake.
Me parece que I'm not getting all the articles that are posted to the 
thread as I get replies to articles that I don't recall seeing the 
original post. (Me parece que = It seems to me that)
Regards,
Tim

Harold Asmis wrote:
> 
> Roger Musson wrote:
> > earthquakes. There is so much else you can do with non-earthquake
> > investigations, as well. Consider the following extreme version of Tim Kelly's
> > hypothesis:
> >
> >       "All earthquakes are caused by dew"
> >
> > From this it follows:
> >
> >      "All things not caused by dew are non-earthquakes"
> >
> > We start collecting data. I have here a coffee mug. Is it caused by dew? No.
> > Is it a non-earthquake? Yes! The datum confirms the hypothesis!
> >
> > Try it yourself.
> 
> Can whales feel the early-morning dew?
I just realized that people may question why I asked that question. 
Well, I'm working on a new theory, better than Roger's.  It's in early
Beta right now, so bear with me.
I call it my unified theory of Whale-Dew-Dew  or WD**2.  It happens that
once in a while a group of whales gets woken up by the whale-designed
Electromagnetic Pulse Alarm (tm).  They look up and see that there's no
dew on the ocean.  This throws them into a panic, since they know that
soon a big earthquake will come with mega-acoustic shock waves which
will blow their brains out. A sense of doom pervades, and they run
themselves up on the nearest beach.  Trouble is, those pesky humans keep
throwing them back in again!
Harold Asmis (at home :)

Dear Everybody,
We are interested in displaying earthquake activity online, using
some internet data feed and some Unix software to display on a
X-Terminal or PC software to display on a dedicated PC.
This display would be accessible to the public and part of our
ongoing research.
Please don't hesitate to request further info.
Any help greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Dr. Christian Goltz, Institut fuer Geophysik, Universitaet Kiel
Leibnizstr. 15, D-24118 Kiel, Germany
Tel. +49-431-880-3881, Fax -4432, e-mail goltz@physik.uni-kiel.de

Quote of the day by Gregory Butler, 32 year old chief of the California
Earthquake Authority.
*****
"I get nervous every time a truck rolls by," Mr. Butler says. "Every day
that goes by means we have more money in the bank, but every day means
we get more exposure."
-- 
Harold W. Asmis        harold.w.asmis@hydro.on.ca
tel 416.592.7379  fax 416.592.5322
Standard Disclaimers Apply

Are there any listservs out there that deal with geology, earthquakes
or volcanology??
Thanks In Advance
Rob Lightbown

This is the second troll I've seen here like this.  This
has a forged return address, and a look at the headers
shows that it appears to have been posted from uu.net.
It appears that someone has it in for dozer@netwizards,
and is trying to incite the usenet community to mailbomb
him.
dozer@netwizards.net wrote:
> 
> Are you interested in making Millions in your spare time?
> 
> Any housewife could do it and so can you!
> 
> Just email me at dozer@netwizards.net to receive your FREE information packet.
> 
> Thanks for your attention, and I'll be talking with you soon.
> 
> Bill
> dozer@netwizards.net
--
----------*Note munged address. Remove "-bitbucket" to reply.*---------
Stan Schwarz         |     "I just want to live like Yogi Bear
stan@cco.caltech.edu |        He kicks ass on the average bear."
-------------------------------------------- -Stukas Over Bedrock -----

In article <32DC6E6E.2B32@iag.net> "Dana K."  writes:
 > From: "Dana K." 
 > Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 21:43:10 -0800
 > Organization: Internet Access Group, Orlando, Florida
                                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thinking of moving to the West Coast?
 > I just read a post that Portland is doing some retrofitting - how are 
 > other West Coast cities doing in this area?  I remember when living in 
 > L.A. before the Northridge quake they were doing some major construction 
 > at UCLA to prepare for an earthquake.
All of California is getting highway bridges upgraded.  Seismic retrofit
signs are up at a lot of road construction sites.  (Including one place
in the Mojave desert that just looked like a culvert.)
There is some work on improving the ability of hospitals to survive and
remain functioning.  (The normal building code is aimed at not having
the structure collapse and kill people.  It is considered a success if
no one dies but the building needs to be torn down.)
LA has also began considering making bonds available to finance the
inspection and retrofitting of welded joints in steel frame buildings
(Source: LA Times).  The bonds would be repaid with a special assessment
on the particular property that is being upgraded.
 >  And I know Japan prides itself on 
 > being structurally sound - until Kobe, of course, surprised them.  How 
 > are the buildings/housing in Seattle? And lastly, are older houses and 
 > apartment houses better to live in during an earthquake or newer ones?  
In general newer buildings do better, since each major urban earthquake
seems to teach something new about how building designs work or fail.
The only caveat seems to be when a new type of construction appears
which hasn't been "tested" in a real earthquake.  The behavior of
certain types of parking garages in Northridge comes to mind -- the type
that were built as poured slabs that were jacked into place.
 > And what kind of structure holds up best?  Thanks.
Currently the winner still seems to be one and two story wood frame
houses that are bolted to their foundations.
-- 
Thomas A. Russ,  USC/Information Sciences Institute          tar@isi.edu    

mcorman@netcom.com (Mary Corman) wrote:
>Was that procedure followed when cold fusion was publicized?
>From what I saw in newspapers and online at that time, it looked 
>like scientists at labs in many places around the world quickly 
>tried to duplicate those experiments even though their theories 
>suggested that it was impossible. Does the amount of publicity
>given to a hypothesis affect how much interest other scientists
>take in helping to prove or disprove it?
Well, yes, unfortunately.  Pons and Fleischman were also "well-respected",
ie, had credentials, did previous research which fit into the framework of
their disciplines, etc.  This also (properly so) made it more likely that
they would be taken seriously. This is all a part of the sociology of
science, a little-studied field which is getting more attention lately in
an attempt to deflect feminist/racialist criticism of the entire
scientific enterprise.
Anthony Argyriou

"Dana K."  wrote:
A single story wood-frame house bolted to a monolithic concrete slab
is fairly safe.
>And what kind of structure holds up best?  Thanks.
dr

In article , gentryd@pipeline.com
(Dennis Gentry) wrote:
>In article ,
>LincMad@Eureka.vip.best.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) wrote:
>>I will state it simply: your hypothesis does not explain any EQs at all.
>>It predicts earthquakes that do not happen, as I have repeatedly pointed
>>out, but you have ignored all evidence which contradicts your hypothesis.
>>That is a very unscientific stance to take.
>
>This isn't the first time that a hypothesis contradicts current thinking
>and probably won't be the last.
Dennis,
You are (as usual) distorting and deliberately misrepresenting my point.
My point is that Tim's hypothesis contradicts current DATA.  I am not
concerned that his hypothesis contradicts current thinking, only that
it does so without any foundation whatsoever.  To test a hypothesis,
you see what predictions it leads to and then see if those predictions
are correct.  Tim's hypothesis predicts earthquakes which do not happen.
Therefore, Tim's hypothesis is incorrect.  End of discussion.
>>Figure out how much energy is released in a magnitude 3.5 quake.  Now
>>figure out what level of static charge would be required to release
>>that much energy.
>
>Maybe a whole lot of energy isn't needed.  Maybe it causes some kind
>of coating action on a fault causing it to slip.  Much in the same
>way as was proposed by Lowell Whiteside in his investigation of the
>relationship of solar flares and earthquakes.
Fine.  But that isn't what Tim's hypothesis holds.  Tim's hypothesis
holds that the capacitative discharge of the static electric build-up
 from successive nights directly causes earthquakes of magnitude 3.5
and above.  Tim is hypothesizing direct causation, so he certainly
does need to know how much energy is required to make the earth move
that much.
-- 
** Any unsolicited commercial e-mail will be subject to a $1500 **
** processing charge.  Sending e-mail to this address, whether  **
** automatically or manually, signifies consent to these terms. **
Linc Madison  *  San Francisco, CA  * LincMad@Eureka.vip.best. com
>>  NOTE: if you autoreply, you must change "NOSPAM" to "com".  <<

In article , mcorman@netcom.com (Mary Corman) writes:
[...]
>But other posts here seem to suggest that whoever 
>proposes an idea (whether called hypothesis or theory) is solely 
>responsible for proving or disproving it. 
>
>Was that procedure followed when cold fusion was publicized?
>From what I saw in newspapers and online at that time, it looked 
>like scientists at labs in many places around the world quickly 
>tried to duplicate those experiments even though their theories 
>suggested that it was impossible. Does the amount of publicity
>given to a hypothesis affect how much interest other scientists
>take in helping to prove or disprove it?
Scientists are basically an insecure bunch, since they are taught to
view everything skeptically, including their own theories. Cold fusion
was glamorous and seductive, and although the odds were long, the
potential payoff was tremendous. If you were insecure in your own
fundamental knowledge and something really big presented itself, what
would you do? Small wonder that scientists who should have known better
got burned.
When it comes to earthquake prediction, it is the nature of the
prediction that most influences people's interest. Successfully predict
a bunch of magnitude 4-5 earthquakes in a larger collection of
similar-sized earthquakes which you do not predict, and the reaction is
likely to be a big yawn, or at least the demand that you, as proponent
of the hypothesis, must collect the data to back it up. But
successfully predict a big earthquake, like the June 10 Delarof Islands
earthquake of last year, and people really sit up and take notice. I
think Charles Bufe and Stuart Nishenko are still riding high. If there
is a big Shumagin or Unimak earthquake before the end of 1998, then
we'll all be talking about accelerated energy release.
-- 
Gerard Fryer      
gerard@hawaii.edu        http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/~gerard/
Personal views only.

In article <5bi26e$jnn@bashir.peak.org>, Tim Kelly  wrote:
>To Those Interested:
>
>Dew point thought says that when the atmosphere is filling with charges 
>and very high tides occur, there is less atmosphere for the charge and a 
>greater chance of an EM earthquake to occur. This post relates more to 
So, we are being charged for less atmosphere? Doesn't sound fair to me.
>time than location. If one does occur along the West Coast, it will occur 
>within several hours of the high tide that follows a plus low tide. The 
>higher tides range in the 8 to 10 ft. range. FYI Both Northridge and Loma 
>Prieta occurred in the period when low tides were in the plus range. I'm 
>pretty sure high tide in the Bay Area was right about the time of the Loma 
>Prieta quake.
I'll bet that the Loma Prieta quake occurred within 6 hours of a high
tide. In fact, I'll bet that all earthquakes occur within about 6 or so
hours of a high tide.
-- 
Eric D                                                                UC Davis
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                  "Building the towers belongs to the sky..."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dana K. wrote:
> 
> I just read a post that Portland is doing some retrofitting - how are
> other West Coast cities doing in this area?  I remember when living in
> L.A. before the Northridge quake they were doing some major construction
> at UCLA to prepare for an earthquake.  And I know Japan prides itself on
> being structurally sound - until Kobe, of course, surprised them.  How
> are the buildings/housing in Seattle? And lastly, are older houses and
> apartment houses better to live in during an earthquake or newer ones?
> And what kind of structure holds up best?  Thanks.
Retrofitting is the biggest moral dilema for engineers.  Do you condemn
a perfectly good building, and throw poor people out on the street?  I
just noticed in the news that Kobe is enjoying a big boom in condo
building (earthquake resistant) on the sites of all those collapses.  Is
there anybody brave enough to have razed all those houses beforehand?
Harold Asmis (at home)

The situation is not quite as "clean" as it might appear at first
glance.  In some disciplines, there are theorists and experimentalists,
but virtually no one is both; in other disciplines, researchers do both.
In physics, for example, the line tends to be drawn sharply; in the
biological sciences, the line is often blurred.
In disciplines where the line between experimentalist and theorist is
sharp, theorists do not test their own theories (at least not with real
experiments; Einstein comes to mind as an example).  Whether or not a
test is performed depends on a number of factors: most important is
whether any experimentalists considers the theory to be worth testing.
Other important considerations are whether the technology, methodology,
and funds exist to conduct a proper test.  An experimentalist may test a
theory he/she thinks is unlikely to be true if it has important enough
implications and was proposed by someone with a good enough reputation;
that was the case with cold fusion.  I doubt that the amount of
publicity a theory receives affects that decision.
	/Al Cooperband
	 ... unattributed opinions are my own
On Wed, 15 Jan 1997, Mary Corman wrote:
...... I would have
> guessed that those who develop theories might need to rely on
> experimentalists to help prove the usefulness or validity of their
> theories.  But other posts here seem to suggest that whoever
> proposes an idea (whether called hypothesis or theory) is solely
> responsible for proving or disproving it.
>
> Was that procedure followed when cold fusion was publicized?
> From what I saw in newspapers and online at that time, it looked
> like scientists at labs in many places around the world quickly
> tried to duplicate those experiments even though their theories
> suggested that it was impossible. Does the amount of publicity
> given to a hypothesis affect how much interest other scientists
> take in helping to prove or disprove it?
......

There is also the cumulative nature of earthquake damage.  Buildings
that have been around long enough probably already have some hidden
earthquake damage; and, at least in parts of CA, they have probably
accumulated termite damage, too.
	/Al Cooperband
	 ... unattributed opinions are my own
On 15 Jan 1997, Thomas A. Russ wrote:
......
> In general newer buildings do better, since each major urban earthquake
> seems to teach something new about how building designs work or fail.
......

In article <5bjirg$nkm$1@mark.ucdavis.edu>, szdefons@boris.ucdavis.edu
(Eric DeFonso) wrote:
>I'll bet that the Loma Prieta quake occurred within 6 hours of a high
>tide. In fact, I'll bet that all earthquakes occur within about 6 or so
>hours of a high tide.
Is that with the high tide and the earthquake located within about
75 kilometers of each other?
Dennis

In article ,
LincMad@Eureka.vip.best.NOSPAM (Linc Madison) wrote:
>In article , gentryd@pipeline.com
>(Dennis Gentry) wrote:
>
>My point is that Tim's hypothesis contradicts current DATA.  I am not
>concerned that his hypothesis contradicts current thinking, only that
>it does so without any foundation whatsoever.  To test a hypothesis,
>you see what predictions it leads to and then see if those predictions
>are correct.  Tim's hypothesis predicts earthquakes which do not happen.
>Therefore, Tim's hypothesis is incorrect.  End of discussion.
Have you gone out and done the research on the data to support your
statement that Tims' hypothesis predicts earthquakes that don't
happen?  If not, then how do you know that they don't happen?
>>>Figure out how much energy is released in a magnitude 3.5 quake.  Now
>>>figure out what level of static charge would be required to release
>>>that much energy.
>>
>>Maybe a whole lot of energy isn't needed.  Maybe it causes some kind
>>of coating action on a fault causing it to slip.  Much in the same
>>way as was proposed by Lowell Whiteside in his investigation of the
>>relationship of solar flares and earthquakes.
>
>Fine.  But that isn't what Tim's hypothesis holds.  Tim's hypothesis
>holds that the capacitative discharge of the static electric build-up
> from successive nights directly causes earthquakes of magnitude 3.5
>and above.  Tim is hypothesizing direct causation, so he certainly
>does need to know how much energy is required to make the earth move
>that much.
Actually in the first part of his DPT he writes what appears to
mean what you've said.  But at the very end in his summarization
he says the draining of the charge is in the form of a capacitor.
Faults act as capacitors.
Hypothesis are only just hypothesis that eventually graduate to a
theory (if I understood everybody elses recent posts) after going
thru several modifications to the original hypothesis.  Growing
pains?  :-)
Anyway...maybe some parts of Tims' theory aren't feasible.  Some
parts are, since current science doesn't know how some of these
things come about.  Looking thru Tims' theory, he doesn't mention
how the charging occurs.  Nobody knows how charging occurs.
They have educated ideas, but nothing concrete.
Isn't one of the purposes of this newsgroup is to discuss earthquake
prediction technology?  Instead all I ever see out here is people
trying to discount a posted hypothesis without trying to assist in
finding plausible alternatives to some of the rough spots in the
hypothesis.
Dennis