seis-matters

This was truly scary for all scientists. The seismologists were not only prosecuted, but found guilty and sentenced to 6 years in prison by the judge. That surprised even the prosecutor who only asked for 4 years. Fortunately the 3-judge ruling during the appeal overturned the verdict. trial/appeal

The New Yorker article is considered to be a tad alarmist in its use of inexact language. For instance: "everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast". In reality the hazard is much more complicated than that and depends on a lot of local factors like what type of building you are in, what ground that building is built on, and what other hazards (tsunami, landslide, etc) could be triggered by the shaking. It is great that the article got people talking about earthquakes though; usually we only get publicity when an event occurs.

Earthquakes send out waves in all directions. The primary, or P wave, is the fastest and and it arrives first. The P wave is much smaller than the later arriving S waves and surface waves and can be felt by some animals but go unnoticed by humans. So your dog could feel the P wave and start barking and then a few seconds later, much to your amazement, the whole house will start shaking. It may seem like Fluffy is predicting the earthquake to you, but really he is reacting to the initial part of earthquake. This is much like earthquake early warning; an earthquake happens and after detecting the P waves on seismometers and broadcasting an alert, everyone gets a few seconds of lead time.

I’ve heard of at least one study on the possibility of ants reacting to gas pockets in the ground being released in the build up to an earthquake rupture, but most animal-earthquake anecdotes can be explained by a reaction to the initial P wave.

This is the guy who said in his weekly forecast that no earthquake larger than M5 would occur in Chile the week before the M8.3 earthquake on September 16th, 2015. When faced with his blatant “miss”, he then went on to claim his prediction of a volcanic eruption was basically the same thing as a large earthquake. Earthquakes = volcanoes? There is no reasoning with that kind of logic. He will bend over backwards to avoid admitting that he was wrong.

Scientists have already explored the theories he presents, or at least the ones based in reality, and will continue to do so. Yes, we know that there are active seismic zones that will have an M4+ about once a week (USGS catalog). Yes, we have observed that some earthquakes appear to trigger others even across vast distances (Hill et al., Science, 1992). Yes, we know that waste water injection is causing man-made earthquakes in Oklahoma, because it did the same thing in Denver back in the 1960s (Healy et al., Science, 1968). Many scientists have dedicated their lives to pushing our knowledge just a little further, and they have done it in the right way by clearly and quantitatively documenting their methods, observations, interpretations and keeping their mind open to new developments.

What he does is undermine all the work we do by trying to discredit our organizations, the researchers, and even the very catalogs he uses to guide his forecasts (!). I think it is fair to say that people expect us to speak out against misinformation. In the end, scientists will be held accountable not only for their own work but also for assessing the validity of the work of others. We are all used to constructive criticism so we don't take it personally, blame others, and give up. We just get back to work.

He has had every opportunity for a proper conversation, but in banning polite critics of his work he has made it abundantly clear that he would rather have faithful followers. Just observe how he reacts when his own people question him, and you'll see that he is motivated by his ego and not by science. And before this ends up inflating his ego even further, all of the above applies to Ditrianum, Suspicious0bservers, and all the other pseudoscientists who purposefully incite rumors and spread misinformation.

Please let me know if you have any questions and I would be happy to address them.