Astroblog: Earthquakes and Planetary Alignments, Yet Again.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Earthquakes and Planetary Alignments, Yet Again.


Saturn-Earth "Alignment" on September the 18th, Venus is off the alignment axis. As this "alignment" doesn't actually pass through the Earth-Moon-Sun axis it actually decreases the tidal force, reducing the likelihood of Earthquakes. Click to embiggen.	Venus near Saturn. Apparently this is a close alignment.

As I write it is the waning hours of September 19. Why does this matter? Because the Barcarroler had predicted a 6.6 magnitude quake on the 18th.

The Barcarroler predicts earthquakes based on a combination of planetary alignments and astrology. I've written about alignments and earthquakes before (See here, here and here). Basically, while it is plausible that crustal tides might set off earthquakes lunar alignments have no significant effect. The tidal effects of distant planets, millions to billions of times weaker than the Moon, can have no effect.

None the less, this does not deter the Barcarroler. Over the past 12 months (2012, 2013 predictions) he has made 15 predictions for earthquakes of magnitude 7 or over, how has that panned out?

Predicted date	Predicted Magnitude	Quake Occurred
Aug 14, 2012	7.2	No
Oct 26, 2012	7.2	No
Nov 14, 2012	7.2	No
Dec 17-18, 2012	7.5	No
Dec 21-22, 2012	8.0	No
Jan 18-19	7.0	No
Jan 28-29	7.5	No
Mar 27-28	8.0	No
April 5-6	7.5 Black Sea region	7.0 Indonesia, April 6
April 28-29	7.8	No
May 10-11	7.5	No
May 25-26	7.7 Peru, NI New Zealand	Earthquakes on 24th, Tonga/Russia
June 19-20	8.3	No
July 20-30	7.5-7.8	No
Aug 25-26	7.8	No
Sept 18	6.6	No

Actual earthquake dates and magnitudes from Geosciences Australia. Of the 15 Earthquakes predicted in the 12 months since August 2012, one fell within the prediction interval (the magnitude was out as was the location, but we will accept this one) and one fell just outside the predicted time (and in completely different spots).

If we include the near miss this represents an 87% failure rate. If we look at the 18 earthquakes of M7+ that did occur, this represents an 89% failure rate. This is just slightly worse than what could have been achieved by guessing randomly (you would have expected to get 3 earthquakes right just from random guessing allowing +/- one day either side of the guessed range). So, we can conclude that the Barcarroler's prediction success is worse than just guessing.

Oh, and has a magnitude 6+ quake occurred? No, another Barcarroler's prediction failed. As there is a magnitude 6-6.9 quake every 2.7 days on average, missing this is pretty sad for his method, as if a 87% failure rate wasn't bad enough.

A good video on why the Barcarroler's alignments are not valid is here. My extensive list of postings on astronomical phenomena and earthquakes is here.

Labels: Conjunction, earthquakes, Pseudoscience

# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 11:58 pm

Comments:

...(O:

# posted by

earthen-magic : 9:02 pm

There are a series of EQs 6.0+ and 7.0+ around the globe this week.
I am still follow those alignments to put some explanation on my reasoning (see Omerbashich's research on this).
For sure, they are along the ring of fire.

# posted by