M A S T E R P A G E
The
Dallas Morning News,
July 26, 1990
Experts to evaluate earthquake warning
by Lee Hancock
The U.S. Geological Survey will officially
evaluate a New Mexico man’s warning that
an earthquake may rock the central United
States on Dec. 3, 1990, an agency official
said Wednesday.
Walter Hays, an official with the
Geological Survey in Washington, said the
agency would convene a panel of geologists
and seismologists from throughout the cen-
tral United States to study the prediction.
“We’re not at all impressed with this
forecast,” he said. “On the surface we would
not expect there is any basis for concern. But
we do want to set people at ease and be sat-
isfied in our own minds that we haven’t
overlooked something.”
The location of the predicted earthquake
is along the New Madrid Fault, which runs
between Marked Tree, AR, and Cairo, IL,
and has branches in West Tennessee and
the Missouri boot heel.
Scientists say it is impossible to predict
exactly when an earthquake will occur.
However, they say they are trying to esti-
mate the probability of an earthquake along
several highly active faults in the United
States.
The decision to evaluate the prediction
follows a plea for help by the region’s seven-
state earthquake response coalition, an
agency that has been struggling for more
than a month to address growing regional
fears about the prediction by Iben Browning,
a self-styled climatologist from Tijeras, NM.
Dr. Hays said U.S. Geological Survey sci-
entists have considered about 300 predic-
tions since 1977 that ranged from the sci-
entific to the ridiculous. But he said that the
widespread public concern makes Dr.
Browning’s prediction unique and that it
was the primary reason for the evaluation.
Dr. Hays said the study probably would
be completed by the end of September.
The National Earthquake Prediction
Council, an advisory board of earth science
experts set up by the U.S. Geological Survey,
last month refused to evaluate Dr.
Browning’s prediction. “They didn’t want to
glorify it,” one mid-south seismologist said.
Dr. Hays said the 13-member council
would evaluate the findings of the region-
al scientists’ group at the request of the fed-
eral geological agency.
“On the surface we don’t expect to see
any basis for this to be a credible predic-
tion,” he said. “But you have to go through
a process.”
The council has officially endorsed 13
predictions since its creation in 1980, said
Dr. Hays, deputy chief for research appli-
cations in the Geological Survey’s office of
earthquakes, volcanoes, and engineering.
The endorsed predictions, which project
activity along faults in Alaska and California
over periods ranging from four to 30 years,
are still pending, Dr. Hays said.
The
New York Times,
August 20, 1990
Midwest Quake Is Predicted
by William Robbins
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