The Astrological Prediction of Earthquakes and Seismic Data Collection

The Astrological Prediction of Earthquakes

and Seismic Data Collection

By Joelle Steele

Copyright Joelle Steele 2020

Joelle Steele Enterprises Publishing at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Sixth Edition 2020 by Joelle Steele Enterprises (print edition ISBN 978-1-940388-33-5)

Fifth Edition 2013 by Joelle Steele Enterprises

Fourth Edition 2009 by Joelle Steele Enterprises

Third Edition 2003 by Joelle Steele Enterprises

Second Edition 1998 by Park Place Publications

First Edition 1994 by Libra Moon Publishing

Cover: Woodblock print (artist unknown) of people fleeing a fire caused by an estimated 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Tokyo (Edo), Japan on November 11, 1855.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Earthquakes

Chapter 2: Place Names

Chapter 3: Cities & Countries Chart Data

Chapter 4: Seismic Data Collection

Bibliography

About the Author

Predictions may be made of comets to come, which (I am inclined to think) may be foretold; of all kinds of meteors, of floods, droughts, heats, frosts, earthquakes, eruptions of water, eruptions of fire, great winds and rains, various seasons of the year, plagues, epidemic diseases, plenty and dearth of grain, wars, sedition, schisms, transmigrations of people and any other or all commotions or general revolutions of things, natural as well as civil.

– Sir Francis Bacon

Preface

I am no stranger to earthquakes. I was born in San Francisco and always lived within a few short miles of the Pacific Ocean in California and Washington states. I’ve experienced everything from little rolling tremors to major jolts and aftershocks, such as those felt during the Northridge Quake of January 17, 1994.

Long before that, I was originally interested in volcanoes. But on August 28, 1973, there was a 7.3 earthquake in Mexico that killed 500+ people. That piqued my interest to the extent that I began collecting seismic data, much of it associated with volcanic eruptions.

It was pre-Internet days, so I visited libraries, bought books, and made copious notes on any historic seismic events I found. To date, I have collected information on more than 3,500 earthquakes and volcanic eruptions throughout the world, and I have examined various kinds of city, state, country birth charts, event charts, transits, progressions, Saturn cycles, lunar data, and everything else I could think of for about 900 of them.

I wrote this book to provide some of the science and history behind seismic activity, and to share my viewpoint on using astrology to predict earthquakes. And if you disagree with me, you may do your own research using charts in the seismic data in this book.

Joelle Steele

September 1, 2020

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Earthquakes

Seismic activity - the movements of the earth as a result of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions - occurs almost everywhere on our planet and on other planets and moons in our solar system as well. There are seismographs on our moon which are used to measure the 600-2,000 small moonquakes that occur there each year, all very small events of magnitude 2.0 or less. There are active volcanoes on Venus and on Io, and it is believed that Mars once had volcanoes. But, as far as we know, there is no life on the Moon, Mars, or Io to be destroyed by earthquakes or volcanic activity. Here on planet earth, it's quite a different story.

Earthquakes can be devastating: Between 1783 and 1875, an estimated 111,000 people were killed in the Calabria area of Italy alone. The deadliest earthquake on record occurred in China in 1556, with more than 830,000 deaths, its magnitude unknown. The 9.5 quake in Chile in May 1960 is the strongest on record, followed by the 9.2 Good Friday earthquake in Anchorage Alaska in 1964, which is the strongest ever recorded in North America. Coming in at third strongest worldwide is the 9.0 on the Indonesian Island of Sumatra in December 2004 (283,100 deaths).

In the 20th and 21st centuries there have been more than 500,000 recorded deaths due to earthquakes. Many of today’s Third World nations lose entire towns, or suffer death tolls in the thousands, in the wake of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes - even moderate ones - and accompanying landslides and tsunamis (tidal waves). Seismic activity is indeed a life-shattering force. The following are just a few examples of these devastating quakes:

1915 Italy. 7.5 quake, 29,980 deaths

1927 China. 8.3 quake, 200,000 deaths

1998 Papua New Guinea. 7.1 quake, 2,183 deaths

1999 Turkey. 5.5 quake, 18,000 deaths

2003 Iran. 6.6 quake, 31,000 deaths

2003 Algeria. 6.8 quake, 2,000 deaths

2005 Sumatra. 8.6 quake, 1,400 deaths

2008 China. 7.9 quake, 69,195 deaths

Many Third World nations lose entire towns, or suffer death tolls in the thousands, in the wake of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes – even moderate ones – and accompanying landslides and tsunamis (tidal waves). Seismic activity is indeed a life-shattering force.

What Causes An Earthquake?

An earthquake occurs when a portion of the earth is suddenly stressed and becomes deformed, taking on the form of a fracture or fault, and in the process releases stored up elastic strain energy which could have been accumulating over years or even centuries. The shaking is produced by the seismic waves which travel out in all directions from the breach in the earth known as the epicenter. Earthquakes can occur as deep as 450 miles below the surface; however, the quakes that do the most damage occur at shallower depths of 30 miles or less below the surface.

Where Do Earthquakes Occur?

We often hear about earthquakes in California and the Pacific Rim countries, where shallow quakes of high magnitudes occur. Many residents on the West Coast worry about the big one. But many experts feel other parts of the country are just as vulnerable to devastation. For example, high magnitude land-locked or continental quakes have occurred in the midwest, such as the New Madrid, Missouri quakes of 1811-12, which were felt as far away as Ohio and caused sufficient topographical change to reroute the Mississippi River by some 100 miles. A continental quake of this magnitude in a metropolitan center could kill far more people and do significantly more damage than a big quake in California.

Another area of the United States that is vulnerable is the eastern part of the country. The faults there are located under thick layers of sediment and there are not usually any warning signs of seismic activity until a shock occurs. Also, in some eastern cities the ground-water is very close to the surface and that brings the danger of liquefaction which often causes buildings to topple over in a quake.

Earthquakes and Volcanoes

Earthquakes are closely associated with volcanoes. For example, quakes in the Owens Valley area of California are primarily due to subterranean volcanic activity. And, most volcanic eruptions are preceded by earthquakes, sometimes for months in advance while the volcano is opening a vent (i.e., an opening in the earth's crust), through which magma is eventually expelled to the surface as lava.

Volcanoes come in many different shapes and sizes and their eruptions may expel gases (e.g., carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, argon, sulfur dioxide, chlorine, etc.), ash, rocks (ranging from pebble-sized to the size of a car), lava (in temperatures from 700-1200 degrees C), or any combination of same. Sometimes the surface on a mountain volcano becomes so hot that it melts snow and frozen soil, which then results in a lahar, rush of mud down the side of the mountain destroying everything in its path.

Volcanic events may continue for a few days or weeks at first and then may produce additional intermittent eruptions for years to come. When a volcano is inactive for long periods of time it is considered to be dormant, a word which literally means asleep. Mount Lassen in California was dormant for about 200 years before it awoke in 1914 and produced violent explosions, avalanches, and mud and lava flows over the following three years.

There are hundreds of active volcanoes lying primarily along the Pacific Rim (the Ring of Fire) and in the Mediterranean, the most seismically active areas on earth. Indonesia has the greatest concentration of active volcanoes anywhere (about 80 of them). Volcanoes are also found along the Great Rift Valley in Africa and even in icy Antarctica. The Cascade Range in the western United States is also a part of the Ring of Fire, with volcanoes that are active, dormant, and extinct. Many parts of the earth were formed by very ancient volcanic activity, such as parts of the British Isles. Clearly, earthquakes and volcanoes have been shaping our planet for eons. They represent Mother Nature in all her fury and we mere mortals have been trying to predict their behavior and measure the force of their activity since the beginning of recorded history.

Measuring Earthquakes

The first seismograph was the Dragon Jar, invented in China in 132 AD by scientist Zhang Hen. It was a seismoscope, a tall jar with an inverted pendulum in the center. Inside was a ring around the brim consisting of eight dragon heads, each holding a ball in its mouth. At the bottom of the jar, directly under the dragons, were eight open-mouthed frogs. During a quake, the pendulum moved and some of the balls fell into the frogs’ mouths.

Other devices for measuring the intensity and power of an earthquake were used over the years, such as putting out pails of water and watching the size and spaces between the ripples during a quake. Yet another device involved stringing a series of bells on a line and measuring the strength of the quake by the size of the bells that rang. The bigger bells vibrated during the more powerful quakes.

In 1855, an Italian, Luigi Palmieri, invented the first device to record the time, intensity, and duration of an earthquake. His seismometer consisted of u-shaped tubes filled with mercury and arranged along compass points. The mercury would move and make electrical contact that stopped a clock and recorded the motion of a float on the surface of the mercury.

It was only a few years later in 1880, that Englishman John Milne invented the first modern seismograph, with a horizontal pendulum. This was the standard until shortly after World War II, when it was improved upon with the Press-Ewing seismograph, which used an elastic wire on the pendulum support.

But, in the end, Zhang Hen apparently knew what he was doing since most of today's seismographs have, at the heart of their operation, a pendulum.

The Richter Scale

Nearly everybody who lives in earthquake country is familiar with the Richter Scale. Invented in 1935 by Charles F. Richter of the California Institute of Technology (Cal-Tech), it measures the magnitude of a quake, the energy that is released in the form of seismic waves during a quake, as recorded by a seismograph. The Richter scale is a logarithmic measurement of the energy released during an earthquake. It is based on the recording and measurement of vibratory movements (body waves) within the earth known as:

On the Richter Scale, magnitude is registered in whole numbers and decimal fractions. According to its logarithmic basis, each whole number represents a tenfold increase in amplitude. Each whole number corresponds to the release of about 30 times more energy. So, an 8.0 quake releases 10,000 times more energy than a 4.0 quake; an 8.3 releases 10 million times more energy than a 4.0 quake; a 6.0 quake releases 27 times as much energy as a 5.0; and a 6.0 quake (equivalent in energy released to that of a 20 kiloton atom bomb explosion) releases 729 (27x27) times as much energy as a 4.0. And, a 7.2 quake produces 10 times more ground motion than a 6.2 earthquake, but it releases about 32 times more energy. That energy release is the indicator of the quake's destructive capability.

When it was first in use, the Richter Scale could only be applied to the results from identical instruments. Today, all instruments are calibrated to one another so that the Richter Scale can be used on any seismograph.

The Mercalli Scale

Before earthquakes were measured with the Richter scale, there was no way of verifying their magnitude. For example, the San Francisco, California earthquake of 1906 is estimated to range between 8.3 to 9.4 based on accounts of damages made by observers at the time.

Measuring the intensity of such a quake required a method of describing how strong it was based on how much it shook and its effect on people (deaths and injuries) and buildings (property damage). There were different intensity scales used over the centuries. Not scientific measurements, they relied on observing and describing quake effects.

The first modern intensity scales were attributed to Italian Michele de Rossi (in 1874) and Swiss Francois Forel (in 1881). By 1883, the two had joined forces to produce the Rossi-Forel Scale. It was the first intensity scale used internationally, and consisted of ten degrees of intensity.

But in 1902, an Italian volcanologist, Giuseppe Mercalli, created the Mercalli Scale, which consisted of twelve degrees of intensity, measured in Roman numerals. In 1931, two American seismologists, Frank Neumann and Harry Wood, developed the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. As with all intensity scales, it relies on observation.

Mercalli Scale

I. Not felt, except by very few people.

II. Weak, felt especially on upper floors.

III. Weak, felt like vibrations of a passing truck.

IV. Light, felt indoors, rattles dishes, walls creak.

V. Moderate, felt by nearly everyone, objects fall or break.

VI. Strong, felt by all, furniture moves, plaster cracks.

VII. Very strong, damage to old or poorly built structures.

VIII. Severe, damage and/or partial collapse in old or poorly built structures.

IX. Violent, partial collapse of poorly built structures, liquifaction occurs.

X. Extreme, destruction of well-built wooden structures and damage to masonry and foundations.

XI. Extreme, most structures damages, bridges destroyed, fissures in the ground, pipelines damaged.

XII. Extreme, total damage, objects thrown into the air, waves seen on ground.

Historic References to Earthquakes

References to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions can be found in virtually all historic literature. One of the oldest such stories is that of the lost continent of Atlantis. The first reference to Atlantis is in Plato's Dialogues, written around 400 BC, in which he tells a very old story about a continent of an advanced civilization which disappeared under the sea within a 24-hour period. Today, most historians believe that this tale may have been a corrupted version of the story of the fall of the Minoan civilization. The Minoans were originally situated in the Aegean Sea on the island of Thera, now known as Santorini. Thera disappeared in about 1400 BC due to a volcanic collapse, and archaeological excavations on present-day Santorini have uncovered ruins very similar to those in Plato's description of Atlantis. No human remains have been found on Santorini which leads experts to believe that there may have been foreshocks and minor eruptions that warned the population who then evacuated the island.

The Christian Bible contains accounts of at least five earthquakes. One reference is in I Kings 19:11-12 in which an earthquake occurs for the benefit of Elijah while he is in the wilderness. A quake is mentioned as an historical event in Amos 1:1 and that same quake is cited again in Zechariah 14:5. Since we know that Amos was living around 750 BC that verifies the quake he references as the devastating one that rocked Jerusalem and the surrounding area in 759 BC.

According to a passage in Acts 16:26, ...there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken... Paul and Silas were freed from that prison as a result. Isaiah 29:6 cites a quake as God's judgment on the enemies of his people.

And there are various references to quakes preceding Christ's resurrection, such as Matthew 28:2 which states, And, behold, there was a great earthquake... Further references to earthquakes appear in Matthew 24:7 (there shall be... earthquakes...), and Matthew 27:54, (Now when the centurion... saw the earthquake...). The references in Mark 13:8 and Luke 21:11 are pretty much the same as that of Matthew 24:7.

Earthquakes As Omens

In ancient times it was believed that earthquakes and other similar types of catastrophes heralded spectacular events. The Bible is very reflective of this belief, particularly in Revelations which talks of what the final days will be like right before Christ's return. In 6:12, when the sixth seal is opened, lo, there was a great earthquake... and upon opening the seventh seal in 8:5, and similarly cited again in 11:19, there were voices, and thunderings... and an earthquake. In 11:13, "And the same