Is Ken Ring a Crackpot? | The Jackal

27 Feb 2011

Is Ken Ring a Crackpot?

Audio Version.


You might have heard that Ken Ring had a pretty good idea about just when the recent Christchurch Earthquake event would happen.

You're first asumption might be to dismiss Ken as a hippy on crack. But there could be some truth to his theories...



The basics: The moon and sun influences the weather through tidal movement, which in turn creates much of the weather on the earth. Tides create structural force on the earths crust. Gravitational pull on the magma within the Earth could also cause stress on tectonic plates. 

The Earth experiences two high tides per day because of the difference in the Moon’s gravitational field at the Earth’s surface and at its center. You could say that there is a high tide on the side nearest the Moon because the Moon pulls the water away from the Earth, and a high tide on the opposite side because the Moon pulls the Earth away from the water on the far side. The tidal effects are greatly exaggerated in the sketches.

Ken Ring says: 20 March is coming

It has meant that since September, every perigee has brought successive earthquakes that were the biggest since the last biggest, starting with new moons and swapping to full moons. With 6 successive monthly biggest events, equally spaced at 4-week intervals, all coming right on kingtide times, all hitting the Christchurch region, the pattern is obvious. And the next is the 20 March closest-perigee for the year, + full moon. The next (and last) powerful perigeal full moon is 18 April.

There's some of the largest solar events at the moment.

A solar flare is a large explosion in the Sun’s atmosphere that can release as much as 6 × 1025 joules of energy (about a sixth of the total energy output of the Sun each second). The term is also used to refer to similar phenomena in other stars, where the term stellar flare applies.

You can read all about earthquakes and sunspots here.

Some scientists have become aware of a correlation between sunspots and Earthquakes and want to use the sunspot data to help predict earth-quakes. The theory is that an intensification of the magnetic field can cause changes in the geo-sphere.
It appears that there is a strong influence on weather and pressure on the earths crust depending on how strong the sunspots are and where the lunar bodies are placed. I have no problem with such theories being the basis for predicting earthquakes. The failure of the geoscientific community to clearly predict such events is apparent. Ken Ring and others have calculated earthquakes to a far greater degree, so there must be some relevance in the techniques they're using.

This is a very old theory and there probably is computer based predictive modeling to a high degree already. Getting people to listen is another question though. If such events are predictable, we have the opportunity to develop theories and measurements through technology so that the predictability becomes even more precise and lives will be saved.
I for one will be keeping a closer eye on Ken Rings theories from now on.