Re: New Susan question

Karen,

I found your article interesting, but the time frames you chose seem a bit
arbitrary;
Could you relate the earthquake activity instead to the more natural
combination of the period of the full moon / new moon and also the solar
maximum and minimum, I personally would suspect that there may be a
correlation between earthquake activity and the solar maximum, which is when
the solar magnetic fields are most chaotic, and the quakes may be triggered
by the additional lunar tidal activity.

Rex Pusser.


"karen Bolander-Claus" <kbclaus@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:42BDA126.97EFF9BC@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Would a study of very large historical earthquakes help with the syzygy
> issue? I have an incomplete study in which I tried to find all of the
> earthquakes greater than Richter 7.7 (or equivalent) which have occurred
> anywhere on the planet during the hundred years between 1897 and 1996.
> Lunar phase matters were not of primary interest to me, but since there
> are so many rumors to the effect that large earthquakes are associated
> with either full moon or new moon phases, I decided to look at that
> matter in the 388 events recorded.
>
> I have divided the events in various ways, one of them by decade: that
> is, decade I being 1897-106; II 1907-1916; III 1917-1926 etc. I then
> separated all of the events by the lunar phase, using a classical 8-fold
> division. The results showed that in Decade IX (1977-1986), in which
> there were 25 events, there was a distinct preference for the first
> quarter of the sun-moon cylce, with 7 events in phase 1 and 7 events in
> phase 2, (14 for the first quarter, or 56% of the total) and in Decade
> VII (1957-1966), a preference for the last quarter: with 24 events in
> total, 5 in phase a7 and 7 in phase 8, or 50% in the last quarter.
> There were no periods where the mid-cycle, before and after full moon
> wans in emphasis.
>
> This seemed to be of some interest, but when I ran the same
> distributions for the full 100 year period, with 388 events, everything
> evened out, resulting in the following sun-moon phase numbers:
> phase 1: 50 events
> phase 2: 44 events
> phase 3: 40 events
> phase 4: 45 events
> phase 5: 51 events
> phase 6: 56 events
> phase 7: 47 events
> phase 8: 55 events
>
> It is fairly easy to see that there is a very slight preference for the
> second half of the cycle in the 100 year totals: 53.9% vs 46.1% . In
> the control, run for the same 100 year period, the ratio was 50.2% vs
> 49.8 %. As far as my poor understanding of statistics carries me, these
> slight differences are not significant, at least for this size sample.
>
> These are largely negative findings, but what they showed me in
> particular was the importance of having a good stretch of time when
> looking at historical data, as well as categories discrete enough to
> allow the inclusion of all the similar events from the period.
>
> In fairness to Jim Berkland, on the other hand, since he seems to be
> looking at "earth tides", he may only want to examine intraplate
> events. It has to be admitted that at the highest magnitudes of my
> study, most of the events are subduction earthquakes, which might not
> follow the same patterns?
>
> If the question is: "Do signficantly more earthquakes take place around
> the full moon than at other phases? " it would seem that the answer
> emerging from my study--at least as far as these Very Large Earthquakes
> is concerned--is "No." Should the findings still be made available to
> others? and if so, where?
>
> By the way, Susan Hough (and this is not just a casual by the way) I
> am most grateful for the appearance of your recent book. It has
> clarified for me many issues which might seem obvious to a specialist.
> I have some idea how challenging it can be to write for the interested
> layman, and I think you have met that challege admirably.
>
> Thanks to all of you for your patience,
>
> Karen Bolander-Claus
>


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