I've bracketed this under catastrophism as it may link into the earthquake storms between 2300 and 2000BC, and again, in the 12th century BC (conventional dates applied). At Tall Bloke's Talk Shop the subject of earthquakes was inspired following the one off the west coast of Canada this past week, and fears of a tsunami wave striking Hawaii. In the outcome nothing catastrophic happened but it is a good point for Tall Bloke to pick up on the earthquake in April 2012 off India. It triggered a large number of other earthquakes worldwide in the 6 days that followed it, as far away as Mexico and Japan. After shocks are usually thought to occur locally – not on the other side of the world. See http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/10/28/giant-earthquake-causes-rise-i… and http://earthsky.org/science-view/rare-great-earthquake-triggers-large-af… (but I don't recommend reading the comments at the latter site). The resulting earthquakes appear to be the result of the passage of seismic waves from the main shock that generated a universal stress in the crust of the earth, running from one fault line to the next. The East India strike/ slip earthquake was big – very big. In the comments at Tall Bloke reference is made to the solar wind. This is akin to the line taken by Piers Corbyn in his earthquake prediction research. Might it also help to explain the apparent earthquake storms in the past as described by Claude Schaeffer (1948) and Amos Nur (more recently).
Last week the media and the blogosphere got all uptight and emotional following a story of 6 Italian seismologists being sent to jail for saying there was no danger of an earthquake – but it duly happened a few days later. We must not jail scientists, was the general response, otherwise they will keep their opinions to themselves when the next earthquake is due, and similar expressions of horror. What lies behind the actual jailing (which will be repealed to a higher court and suspended)? It is not simply as a result of them failing to predict the earthquake, in which 300 people died, but the manner they did so. They were more concerned with debunking what they thought was a rogue scientist who was actually predicting the earthquake, partly based on the release of radon from local rocks. As they had no way of predicting an earthquake by the orthodox methodology they assumed he was a charlatan and came out opposite – saying warnings of an earthquake were over stated and it was not going to happen. It did. The locals were not impressed with the orthodox scientists – or the reasons for their rebuttal. What the seismologists should have said is that they didn't know if an earthquake would occur but they did not want to give succour to the rogue claim. The response, in other words, was non-scientific. It was dogmatic. This subject has also popped up as a forum debate at www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7327