Through acquisition of information we’ve come to appreciate that precursory clues to earthquakes most often occur between fifteen days to a scant fifteen minutes before they occur. Certain types of data are more reliable than others and by collection of data over a long period of time we became more familiar with what is most useful, thus we are limiting collection of information in categories which we deem within our scope and direction for this project.
While we wish to acquire information for real time use, we also want to know about experiences or oddities which our visitors noticed prior to earthquakes they have experienced to expand on our database of knowledge in this realm.
But first, we should ask what has happened in the past in near real time prior to earthquakes?
1975 – Hebgen Lake, Montana. (15 miles n/w of Yellowstone National Park). All of the waterfowl in the area flew away two weeks prior to the 8/17/75 - M 7.5 earthquake and did not return until two weeks after the last M 6.0 aftershock.
1975-1989 – Calistoga, California. The Old Faithful Geyser changed its eruption schedule from an average of every ten to fifteen minutes to a maximum of every three hours before M 5.0 or greater earthquakes.
1999 – Bennett Valley, Santa Rosa, CA. The night before an M 4.2 earthquake occurred a woman reported her ears were ringing all night and upon going to bed said she felt like she was in the middle of an electrical force field. The earthquake occurred the following morning directly under her home.
1994 – Northridge, California – Oil seeped out of the hillsides above the area as pressure from below pushed it upward.
2001- Petra heard a sound in her left ear that was so loud it seemed like a freight train was no more than an arms distance away and in counting the seconds of the sound knew it would be some distance north of her location in Petaluma, California and two hours later a M 6.8 event occurred in Nisqually, Washington. This led to the further development of the Earth Sounds research project which primarily encompasses the sensation of hearing earthquakes before they occur which continues at present. Details from this event afforded us a known distance factor thus allowing us to map where earthquakes are going to occur rather than guessing my memorizing the sounds themselves.
1999-2007 – Livermore Valley, California. Before M 2.0 and greater earthquakes a reported noted in the morning on the days in which earthquakes occurred the birds in the neighborhood failed to sing and the squirrels that normally romped through the neighborhood failed to appear. (Our reporter became unavailable after 2007).
2002 – San Giuliano di Puglia, Italy - Several women in the village intuitively knew a serious earthquake was going to occur after two minor earthquake tremors which were unusual in the area. They rushed to the school where Halloween festivities were planned and urged the school to cancel those activities and class for that day. Their pleas were ignored and on Halloween morning during an earthquake the upper floor of the school collapsed killing twenty-six students, one teacher and one local resident.
2006 – Glen Ellen, California - 6 miles south of the epicenter and fifteen minutes before the 08/03/06 M 4.3 earthquake a drip irrigation system in a vineyard suddenly began gushing water and in Santa Rosa, 6 miles north, race horses which were placed in their paddocks for the night became very agitated and gave all indications to their horsemen they wanted out of those buildings. The horsemen knew from this behavior an earthquake was about to occur.
2009 – L’aquila, Italy – A scientist in Italy noticed unusually high readings of radon gas and toads in the area left during nesting time in advance of the event. Toad migrations are not uncommon, but rare during nesting season.
2010 - Okinaway (Ryukyu Islands) At two o’clock in the morning every bird in town was screeching and three hours later an M 7.0 earthquake occurred on February 26th.
Research Project Primary Areas of Focus
Human Sensitivity to Nearby Earthquakes - Phantom and random nerve related tooth aches, even when there is an absence of teeth, hearing pulsating sounds in both of one’s ears, vertigo, headaches, intuitive thoughts out of nowhere that an earthquake might occur, be it slight or dramatic.
Animal Sensitivity – Our project will focus on birds including local neighborhood birds, ostrich and emus; also large animals such as horses and large zoo animals. Hamsters and unusual snake sightings; but we will not include cat or dog reports as they are often upset over other events that may or may not be earthquake related. But we may consider posting information which we deem might be earthquake related that appears in the press.
Physical Phenomena - Sudden changes in large drip irrigations systems with no known cause such as water pipe breakage. Increases or decreases of water level changes in wells. Oil seeps that are not routine to certain areas. Earthquake lights which are luminous and hover above earthquake faults or other reports of similar in nature.
Instrument Data - We will post notes of instrument data changes which indicates an earthquake may occur nearby, though this project will not note the source if it is deemed proprietary.
Your Contributions
This endeavor needs your participation to make it as useful as possible. Please feel free to offer your contributions for past and current earthquake precursory clues to events as noted on our contact page. If you have a web site or belong to a forum or community group and would like to let it be known we are welcoming reports we would sincerely appreciate your help. All reports will be kept confidential and only the precursory earthquake content will be used, though abbreviated to the information for the type of event reported and the general location of where it is occurring.
