Nevada Quake Storm

I know this may sound like alarmist journalism, but just hear me out.

I was looking at the animation of the activity around Mogul, Nevada using Google Earth. I noticed something odd. For every single earthquake there was an answering 1 or 2 magnitude earthquake centered in a new development just SE of the golf course there (roughly 39º31'48" N by 119º54'43" W).

I'm not sure if that is an inaccuracy on the part of the plotting mechanism employed or if it truly is the location of so many aftershocks. If there is someone at USGS that would like to comment on the accuracy of that particular plot-point (and if you're silly enough to read this blog), please leave a comment. Thanks.

(This is my layman's opinion) If it is the true location, then there is going to be a problem at that location. There are so many earthquakes cracking so much rock in such a specific area at various depths that the entire column of rock is becoming unstable. This is true whether the fracturing there is vertical or horizontal. In essence, the area within 25 to 50 feet of this location might settle enough to collapse. A sinkhole of about 10 to 12 feet in depth. If it's much bigger than that, I'd be surprised.

[I'm just gonna plug this on the blog now and fact check point accuracy and fault zones. I just want this prediction up with a time stamp on it and will definitely post corrections to this after this blurb]

Okay. After reading up on all the ways errors can accumulate for lower magnitude earthquakes as regards the location of of the epicenter and depth, I've discovered that all these quakes could, indeed, be located in very different locations. However, why lump them into one spot so consistently? Reference points are usually the city hall of the nearest populated area. I would suppose that that would be a better location to lump inaccurate "guesses" instead of some unfinished development. The inaccuracies can be as much as 5km in any direction and as much as 2 km in depth. That's way bad. With this in play, USGS still maintains that the epicenter accuracy rate is near 90% without any qualification. Can any of the epicenter locations be trusted? Apparently, if it's larger than 3.0 magnitude. Smaller and they throw a dart, raise their collective hands, shrug their collective shoulders, and make a funny noise at us (IUhOh).

But why does that dart seem to be landing there? Every time? Did somebody at USGS buy a house there and they are trying to show off? Nah. Too obvious. Besides, there were two reviewed earthquakes no less than half a mile from that location. The smaller earthquakes aren't even reviewed and the reviewed events don't list a location uncertainty. Wait a minute, neither do the reviewed events. Hmmmm.....

Stop! I'm not advocating conspiracy here. Just voicing a concern about incomplete data.

The last surface rupture in that fault region (according to the KML [Google Earth] maps the USGS has on the site) happened sometime between 750 thousand and 1.5 million years ago. This particular area is seismically active, but this particular activity in this one location can't be "normal."

Make of it what you will.

[update 4-29-08]

Getting a close-up view of the weird site mentioned above (something I neglected to do other than to see what was on the site) shows that it is already in a slight depression between two small hills. This does not indicate a previous sinking of that ground. It is the result of the original uplift. I'm wondering if this is an indication of further uplift, an uplift of the spot indicated, or what I had previously stated. Hard to tell now.

[update 5-1-08]

I just noticed three other spots that have extreme multiple hits, plus three spots with three to five hits. I'm changing the location of my predicted, very slight "elevation change." Look to approximately 39º31'46" N 119º55'32" W. "Very slight," equals somewhere between 3 to 12 feet over the next 6 months or so. That's right. Nothing drastic and nothing quick. A surveyor team would need to measure it. Did you think I was claiming the ground was gonna fall out from underneath these people?

[update 8-2-08]

Holy Carp! Did I say feet? Man-o-man... that should have been inches. Yeah inches is small potatoes, but it should be over that entire hill. Then again, no one is likely to check, so who cares, right? Poor golf course.....

So, did they get his gun yet?

I'm a bit of a jerk. I know that. I'm also 50 minutes late on this (at the time of this writing), so no scoop for me (not that I was trying).

A great actor, humanitarian (of sorts), and fairly nice guy (if you didn't quote movies at him), has left us. Charlton Heston died today. While it is sad to know that he died of complications due to Alheimer's disease, I must assume that he would appreciate the humor here.

While he may be remembered as all the things that I mention above, plus many other things that many other people will eventually vomit onto the blogosphere, there is one event which I fear will be played over and over again. I surely hope that it is not the only thing he is remembered for.

As president of the NRA, at one of their meetings, he used a cliche accompanied with a visual prop of a rifle during a speech. Holding the rifle up, he declared, "From my cold, dead hands!"

What I really want to know is: who got his gun?