Curiosity Aroused

Investigation, Exploration, and the Pursuit of Truth

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Shaky Ground: Can We Predict Earthquakes?
In April 2010, Twitter was flooded with warnings that a large earthquake was due to hit southern California within days. The rumors moved to email where they spread from person to person, panicking those who may be affected. But eventually, the days came and went without an earthquake. The rumors were started by Luke Thomas, a man who says he has the ability to predict earthquakes — he even claims a 70% success rate. Geologists unanimously agree that we currently have no way to predict earthquakes, so who is right? Amy Davis Roth looks into it for Curiosity Aroused.

Special thanks to Amy Davis Roth of Skepchick.org, Ray Beiersdorfer, Luke Thomas of EarthquakePrediction.com, and the Voodoo Trombone Quartet who provided today’s music. Hear more at www.myspace.com/voodootrombonequartet or find their album on iTunes.
Speaking of iTunes, you can find and rate all our shows there, or you can visit CuriosityAroused.com. We love to hear your feedback at curiositycast@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!


Man Correctly Predicted Bay Area Quake:
cbs13.com/local/Luke.Thomas.Earthquake.2.490535.html
Prediction Of Large Earthquake In L.A. Spreads Via Twitter, Email:
blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/city-news/quake-prediction-twitter-email/
Ray’s bio:www.as.ysu.edu/~geology/RAy.html
Dismal Prospects for Short-Term Earthquake PredictionRoyal Astronomical Society, 1997”There is no known way of predicting exactly when and where an earthquake will happen - and any claims that they can be predicted are not supported by the evidence.”Geophysical Journal International Vol. 131 No. 3 December 1997 Special Section Assessment Of Schemes For Earthquake Prediction
From Ray’s notes on Berkland:I set out to replicate Berkland’s findings [on pets leaving prior to earthquakes], and I sat in the Santa Cruz Public Library for several weeks counting the Lost Pet ads in the San Jose Mercury News microfilm collection. I confirmed that Berkland’s calculations were indeed correct; there was a significant rise in the number of missing dog and cat ads in the weeks prior to the 1989 quake. The trouble was that when I checked the number of missing pet ads for the year before, during the same time period, there was also a rise—yet an earthquake didn’t follow the rise that year. So more counting needs to be done to determine whether seasonal effects might influence this phenomenon or not, but it does appear that Berkland is on to something significant with his method.
Can animals predict earthquakes? - A search for correlations between changes in activity patterns of two fossorial rodents and subsequent seismic events by Robert G. Lindberg, Durward D. Skiles, and Page Hayden, Open file report no. 81-385 U.S. Geological Survey, 1981Two Seismically Active Sites in California Showed No Covariance of Events
California Geology  Vol. 41, no. 2. California Division of Mines and Geology, Feb. 1988No co-variation of missing dogs, cats or birds with earthquakes

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