Earthquake and tornado data evaluation Perl program Apr. 14, 2004

From: edgrsprj (edgrsprj_at_ix.netcom.com)
Date: 04/14/04 

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 15:42:48 GMT

Summary: If all goes according to plan, the earthquake and tornado data
evaluation Perl program discussed in this report will be made available to
researchers, governments, disaster mitigation personnel, and computer
programmers around the world, possibly later this week. This report has
been posted here in an effort go see if anyone would like to comment on a
demonstration version of that computer program.

The information in this report represents expressions of personal opinion.

Posted by E.D.G. Professional Analyst April 14, 2004
http://www.freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/index.html

Summary: A small demonstration version of an earthquake and tornado data
evaluation Perl program can now be downloaded for free from the following
address:

http://www.freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/311.zip (About 400,000 bytes)

That file contains only ASCII text and html files including one Perl program
which is in a ASCII text file format. However, to be safe that download zip
file should of course be checked for viruses before it is opened etc. I
don't run that Web server. The zip file expands to about 11 files for a
total of roughly 3 million bytes.

Support documentation is contained in a Read-Me file in that zip file and on
the following Web pages:

http://www.freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/301.html
http://www.freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/302.html
http://www.freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/303.html

If you would like to see the type of data the program generates and examine
its source code before downloading the zip file then that information can be
found on that 303.html Web page. That page and the 302.html Web page also
contain information regarding how to interpret the data which the program
generates. The numbers in the PR (a probability rating) column are the most
important. They show how well the program's test routines indicate a
warning signal matched some past earthquake.

The small demonstration version of the program will complete a run in just a
few seconds. Then if it is being run with Window XP it will try to have a
text editor automatically open a data output file named "results.out" You
may have to tell Windows which text editor should open files with that
extension. Several commands near the bottom of the program can be changed
to have it automatically open the output file with Windows 98. And Windows
98 Progman.exe will then have to be closed before another run is started.
With other operating systems and perhaps even with Windows XP and 98 it
might be necessary to go to the directory where the program resides and
manually open the output file with a text editor.

I would be interested in hearing if the program runs Ok with Unix and other
operating systems.

Plans are for the full program to be made available for download at that Web
site as soon as all of the documentation has been finalized and some
adjustments have been made to a few of the program data files.

For the following reason and others I believe that this program has the
potential to revolutionize the science of earthquake forecasting and perhaps
also move the science of tornado forecasting forward:

1. It actually works for at least some earthquakes. There have been many
attempt to develop such a data processing program over the centuries. But I
am not aware of any others which have been successful. This one works in
part because of two important discoveries which I made regarding how sun and
moon gravitational pull data need to be combined and regarding the existence
of an earthquake triggering and precursor signal symmetry effect.
Information regarding those discoveries can be found on the following Web
page and others at that Web site:

http://www.freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/90-05.html

The program has not yet been used to do much tornado research. But I
believe that its data processing routines might work for evaluating what
appear to me to be certain types of tornado warning signals.

In its present form it does not actually predict earthquakes or tornados.
Rather it attempts to tell where fault zones are located which are
generating the precursor signals which people are detecting. Once they know
where those fault zone are located they can then use different tests to
check the areas for other signs of approaching earthquakes. I have seen the
program produce some amazingly accurate data. Along those lines that
303.html file contains some information which the program generated which I
believe pointed to that approaching destructive California, USA earthquake
which occurred last December 22, 2003.

2. The most important reason that it has so much potential may be the fact
that it should, or at least I hope that it will, open the door to these
sciences to both professional and amateur researchers around the world
including computer programmers who I expect might be doing quite a bit of
the initial computer program expansion work.

Normally if you want to do any work in these areas you need a laboratory
filled with expensive scientific equipment. With this computer program all
you now really need is a sufficiently powerful computer. And any personal
computer built in the past 10 years should probably be adequate. One of the
downloadable files will contain records of more than 20,000 earthquakes
going back to the start of 1990 along with quite a few records of earthquake
warning signals and what are believed to be tornado warning signals which
were detected during the past decade. Researchers can use the program or
some future version of it to study both the earthquakes and warning signals
in that file. They don't need any expensive instrumentation. And they
don't even need Internet access if they can get the program files from some
other source. Computer programmers should be able to dramatically improve
both the data processing routines in the program and also its structure, how
it collects, processes, generates, and displays data.

My discussions with other researchers around the world indicate to me that
it should be possible for people to obtain new, reasonably high quality
earthquake precursor data without too much trouble for free from numerous
sources around the world.

The program has virtually unlimited room for improvement.

It relies heavily on sun, moon, ocean tide, and Solid Earth Tide data. And
it needs to have subroutines added to it which would enable it to generate
those types of data as they are needed. I am generating them myself with
programs such as the commercially available MICA program. But for the
foreseeable future, downloadable versions of the program will have to
extract those types of data from enormous data files which will be in the
download files. One of them has already been stored at my Web site:

http://www.freewebz.com/eq-forecasting/313.zip (About 4 million bytes)

That file does not have to be downloaded for the demonstration version of
the program to work.

The program presently uses relatively simple tests to compare data regarding
things such as the locations of the moon in the sky when earthquakes
occurred with that same type of data for the times when warning signals were
detected. It needs to have more sophisticated comparison tests added.

Last but not least, some organization is going to have to keep track of
where development efforts stand and try to keep them moving forward. I will
not have the resources to do that myself if very many computer programmers
and researchers around the world get involved with program development. I
am planning to contact one international organization that I have in mind in
an effort to see if they would like to take charge of the effort.

It is my expectation that this effort will eventually become sufficiently
advanced and complex that only specialists in geophysics and atmospheric and
space sciences will be able to make any significant discoveries. But I
believe that at the moment this represents a relatively new area of science.

This is not a sophisticated or even well written Perl program. As the
documentation explains, one of my primary goals was to get something running
as quickly as possible. I needed the program for my own forecasting
efforts. My older data evaluation programs written in different versions of
Basic and other languages ran out of computing power some time last year.
Also, this new program was written with a very simple structure so that
other people could easily add new data processing routines to it without
having to be Perl programming experts and so that it could be easily
translated into other programming languages, an effort which is actually
already underway.

If you do not like the program code then just remember this: Earthquakes
claim a reported 10,000 lives a year. On the average that is one life every
hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If this program has the potential to
reduce those casualty numbers then more could be accomplished by producing
better looking versions of the program than by moaning and groaning about
its present code style.

In a day or two after people reading this report have had a chance to
comment on the program I am planning to let Pascal, Ruby, Basic, C, and
Fortran programmers know about the existence of the program. And then when
the full version is ready for downloading I will be circulating information
regarding it to researchers, governments, and disaster mitigation groups
around the world.

FINAL COMMENTS

With many technologies which have some lifesaving potential progress can be
slow because the work relies on expensive lab instruments, highly trained
personnel, and research programs which can take years to plan and develop.
That is in my opinion no longer the case for the science of earthquake
forecasting and hopefully to some extent tornado forecasting. From this
point on the limiting factors in the development of this particular type of
technology might be how quickly this computer program can be expanded, and
the amount of success that researchers have with interpreting and
understanding the data that it is generating and using that knowledge to add
more powerful data processing routines to the program.

When will deadly earthquakes become a thing of the past?

Throughout history we have waited for scientists (I am one myself) and other
researchers to provide us with an answer to that question. A door might now
have opened which will make it possible for computer programmers around the
world to answer the question.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: big sway
    ... but no damage. ... magnitude of an earthquake with accuracy, but also to triangulate its true ... Bedrock, lying below the Cenozoic sediments, where the fault ... Fortunately, we never had to face down a tornado, but we used to get ...
    (rec.music.makers.guitar.acoustic)
  • Re: How far south in Illinois....
    ... > buildings in LA or SF, there is little chance an earthquake will ever ... population areas are right along the fault zones. ... I've never cancelled a round of golf because I was afraid a tornado would ... hit my house. ...
    (rec.sport.golf)
  • Re: Slipping and Sliding in Wash. State
    ... bought what used to be called air raid sirens with voice capability. ... up for tornado season, it was tied into the SEMA system, and they ... tornado warning for all 114 counties and the city of St. Louis ... many contemplated people leaving an area with an earthquake prediction ...
    (sci.geo.earthquakes)
  • Re: OT: My Thoughts on Katrina stuff
    ... > another one of these "idiots"? ... no I have no idea what the odds are of a hurricane ... a tornado in Topeka or an earthquake in L.A. But if I ...
    (rec.gambling.poker)
  • EARTHQUAKE FORECASTING COMPUTER PROGRAM
    ... The computer program is already fully operational. ... Click on the Earthquake Forecasting Computer Program link on the top ... electromagnetic energy field pulses that can be easily detected around ...
    (sci.geo.satellite-nav)