Seismic activity - any statisticians in the house?

[perfectresonance]

The full 1 hr 40 minute audio interview with Dr Bill Deagle about the causal connection between Planet X (not a planet, but a brown dwarf star, currently somewhere round the orbit of Jupiter) and the clear trend of increased volcanic and earthquake activity that's becoming increasingly hard for anyone to ignore.

Is it a clear trend?

Is it a statistically significant trend?

For example, the south and east of the USA suffered a huge number of hurricanes a few years ago, and at the time you could have felt that it was a clear trend of increased activity. However, over time, that was just a bigger year, but not a "clear trend of increased ... activity".

I've been wondering if the current lot of seismic activity is statistically significant, or it's just us human's doing the same thing as saying "dang that's a hot day - I can see that global warming is here alright".

Anyone?

[Vidya Moksha]

wheres the raw data? easy enough to do the stats on numbers. not so easy on subjective opinions.... "when i was a lad we had REAL earthchanges.. thes young 'uns today dont know they were born...."

[lindabaker]

I think the USGS is deliberately knocking down some tenths of points off of their reported quake magnitudes. Notice that most initial reports come in higher, then they are changed, and always lower! Notice that the nearby countries, such as Mexico, will report the quake as larger by two or three tenths. For instance, the US will report a 6.2, while Mexico will report a 6.4. That's a really big difference. Perhaps they are trying to prevent panic based on the upward trends shown in statistical analysis. If the true numbers were in there, the trend would be much more obvious. It's a possibility. Let's hope that they wouldn't have been coerced into such data fixing.

[perfectresonance]

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/ Off you go

My point is that "we" are perpetuating the idea that there is an increase ("it's obvious!"), but I suspect that things aren't too bad, especially taking into account lunar and solar cycles.

Hmmm, that makes me think of another angle...

(scurries off to another corner of the Internet doing fake "research" )

[Vidya Moksha]

interesting start here:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquak...ar/eqstats.php

my anova (analysis of variance) stats packages are on my network (my area is multivariate stats, not good for these data) , easy enuff to run these data thru when im hooked up next...

[perfectresonance]

It has been determined that in the period of solar activity increase (11-year
cycles) there increase seismic and volcanic activities in the compression zone of
Earth and at the same time there decreases the activity in the tension zones of Earth.
On the basis of the discovered stable 11-year and 22-year cyclicalities in the seismic
and volcanic activities and their high correlation with solar activity there has been
made the long-term forecast until 2018. The next maximum of seismic and volcanic
activity with very high amplitude for the compression zones of Earth is forecasted for
the period 2012-2015. --- Transactions of the International Academy of Science H & E.
Vol.3. 2007/2008, SWB, Innsbruck, 2008 ISBN 978-9952-451-01-6 ISSN 2070-0334

I just love this 'fake' research on the Internet - but I digress...

So, the real question remains: is the increase we think we are experiencing over and above (significantly so) the increases one would expect due to the solar cycle?

[Vidya Moksha]

average data is often misleading and i see they dont show deviation from the mean, which is more useful



mm, doesnt link too well... red is death, top bar is is mag 6 to 6.9

middle mag 7 to 7.9

bottom above 7.9

[perfectresonance]

Posted by Vidya Moksha (here)
interesting start here:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquak...ar/eqstats.php

my anova (analysis of variance) stats packages are on my network (my area is multivariate stats, not good for these data) , easy enuff to run these data thru when im hooked up next...

With the talents on this board I reckon a bunch of us could run a small country at least as well as any incumbents

[lindabaker]

Dear Perfect: Thanks for the link. Yup, I have been looking at the usgs for several years now. I guess I'm not the only one who thinks the usgs may be shaving points. Check out the Earth Updates thread, posts 210 and 211. Is it really true that no injuries were reported in Taiwan? Or was that just initial reports?

[Lucrum]

In terms of changes in seismic activity I would believe finding evidence of frequent or large quakes in areas not previously known to have such frequency or magnitude would be significant.

One could of course plot in all quakes and calculate year averages in magnitude and average frequency, to see if there is an increased trend in either of them.

It's alot of work though, unless someone has a sheet and a way of parsing the data directly from the source.
Would believe these places did such calculations themselves as well, but hey...it's nice to verify it from a 3rd part!

[Niobe]

Not sure if this is the best thread to post this in but... I live in Northern Lower Michigan and a relative of mine said her brother in law just recently got a job (very low paying) where he walks around in the woods all day with a 100lb backpack supposedly taking seismic readings? I found that odd, given we're in MI for one thing.