🚀 go-pugleaf

In <CJu9p7.An5@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> pec1@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (peter.e.costello) writes:

>      On thye way to work today (1/18/94) I heard a report on my radio (WCBS AM)
>that a HAM had predicted the LA quake on the weekend before it happened. They
>said he had faxed the prediction to news organizations, however, since he had
>made a prediction in the past that did not happen the news organizations (CBS?)
>ignored the latest fax. They mentioned he had some sort of equipment he used
>to help predict a quake.

>     The significance that he (they said "he" not she) was a HAM was not
> reported. Perhaps it relates to radio energy that rocks generate under
> pressure (I think the Nova TV show reported that phenom).

The "prediction" was from Jack Coles of San Jose. The wording I saw quoted
was pretty vague. I don't think he is a licensed ham, but he (and a lot of 
ther people) have been monitoring electromagnetic phenomena that they believe
may be correlated with earthquakes.  There are several groups of 
researchers around the world working on this, based on the theory that
in the pre-quake period, there are stresses and movements that generate
electric potentials or change resistivities of different rock strata, 
and that there might be surface-detectable electromagnetic phenomena to
go along with it. No one knows what the mechanism is for sure, there are
a lot of almost plausible theories but a lot of the experimenters in this
field, including Coles, have chosen to keep their methods secret. Unfortunately
there is a really hostile attitude toward most of this work from the 
traditional geological/seismological community, which tends to discourage
people from disclosing methods that even they don't understand fully. USGS is
working on one aspect, with some magnetometers installed in the Parkfield 
(seismically active) area to look at this phenomenon, Tony Fraser-Smith
of Stanford has been working on it, with papers published at AGU meetings,
Jack Dea et al of the Navy (NCCOSC San Diego) published a paper that has
some interesting data in it. Coles believes he is a little closer to being
able to "predict" which I guess pushes him to send faxes to news organizations;
however he and the other undisclosed-theory observers don't have a very 
good success rate yet. 

>     Does anyone have the full report, the fax prediction, or other details
>on this? Sounds like it would make a good Quirks & Quarks (if he was Canadian
>maybe ;-).

The only excerpt I have seen is the following, sent to a Well subscriber
on Saturday night:

"Reports are coming in from all over the bay area and southern California
of increased radio signals...results could mean a quake greater than six
points...another set of smaller signals happened on Jan. 13, 1994 at
12:m.  These signals were small and may reach a 3 to 4 on the scale
during the next 96 hours.  The location of these signals were toward
Southern California and may be felt in Los Angeles."

When we get to the point of being able to observe "the signals" and 
know what we're talking about, then maybe there will be more rational
discussion and less polarization between either "he's nuts" or "he's magic."

There is a magazine on this topic published by Vince Migliore called
Geo-Monitor, you can reach Vince at glyph@well.sf.ca.us.

Cheers
David WA6NMF
-- 
David Josephson <david@josephson.com>