Geologist Says Major Earthquake Imminent for California - Jim Berkland

Interviewer is Bil Carroll KFI 640 am Los Angeles
Within days of the Sendai event, retired geologist Jim Berkland began sounding warnings that another earthquake could occur, specifically in California or off its coast, on or about March 19. Berkland has a remarkable reputation for earthquake forecasting; in fact, many credit him with predicting the Loma Prieta Earthquake of October 17, 1989, commonly known as the "World Series Earthquake" because many San Francisco residents, who otherwise might have become casualties, were in the Candlestick Park stadium at the time, anticipating Game 3 (later rescheduled). (On that account, only 67 people lost their lives, despite $6 billion in damage.) Berkland had warned that such an event might occur days before.

Now he points out at least four risk factors: 1. The moon will be not only full, but at perigee. In fact this will be the closest perigee that the moon will have for the next five years. Experts have recently had to accept the role of tidal forces in the triggering of earthquakes. (See Maya Tolstoy et al., "Breathing of the Seafloor: Tidal Correlations of Seismicity at Axial Volcano," Geology, Vol. 30, June 2002, pp. 503--506.)
2. The next day will be the vernal equinox, which produces the equinoctial tides, another stressor on account of the earth's axial inclination.
3. The California coast has recently seen a massive and unexplained fish kill. Such fish kills, and aberrant behavior of pets and livestock, have been remarkably accurate earthquake predictors (though not of 100 percent predictive value). In fact, twice the usual number of dog and cat owners reported their pets missing prior to the Loma Prieta event.
4. Finally, the Ring of Fire has already seen four other earthquakes either along the ring or along a trench connected to it in the past year, in Haiti, Chile, New Zealand, and finally the Sendai event. In the belief that such events follow a pattern, Berkland believes that the San Andreas Fault might be due. This was the fault involved in the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.

Walt Brown at the Center for Scientific Creationism accepts most of Berkland's arguments as sound, with this key difference: he would not limit the earthquake risk to the San Andreas Fault or even to the entire Ring of Fire. The earth's crust is fractured to an extent that most people, including Jim Berkland, do not realize. As many faults as conventional geologists claim to have identified, the crust has many times that many faults.

Brown notes that the so-called tectonic plates are not rigid, "though that is the standard dogma taught in geology classrooms worldwide." The Pacific Plate happens to be more fractured than any of the other plates, which is why it has the greatest number of volcanoes. (Nearly every island in the Pacific Ocean is volcanic in origin.) But every other plate is fractured to some degree. That includes the North American Plate, through the center of which runs the New Madrid Fault that generated an earthquake in 1812. (Israel lies along the fault line where the Africa and Arabian Plates meet.)

Brown fully agrees with Berkland's reasoning concerning the full moon and the equinoctial tides. Concerning the aberrant animal behavior, Berkland suggests an alteration in the earth's magnetic field, though he does not explain that. Brown does, however: When you get a big earthquake like [the Sendai event] anywhere in the world, you are going to get stress building up throughout the crust. The mantle is definitely moving; that's what caused the Sendai event. And it will keep building up stress throughout the crust, and in this granite crust, laden with quartz, it will produce piezoelectric activity, thus massively increasing voltages in some areas, while decreasing it in others. This alters the local electric fields, and that alone can explain the fish kills and the aberrant animal behavior.

Where such activity is occurring is the most likely spot for an earthquake to strike.

Brown has long held that such piezoelectric activity, on a grand scale, produced voltages sufficient to fuse heavier-than-iron atoms into ever-heavier elements and is responsible for all of the trans-lead elements in the earth's crust. The same effect, on a scale sufficient to affect animal behavior, now serves as an indicator of earthquake risk, though, as Brown hastens to ask, not a fully accurate predictor of seismic events.

Continue reading on Examiner.com: Risk of another earthquake greatly increased - National creationism | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/creationism-in-national/risk-of-another-earthquake-gr...

Complete Radio Interview here http://www.kfiam640.com/common/podcast/single_page.html?podcast=BillCarroll

Some video used credits to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfmE630y-Jc