I want to go on record as saying that I think NEIS does a
GREAT job.  A few years ago I was given a tour of the
NEIC, so I know basically how it works.  I know that they
go home at night like "normal" people and are paged
automatically if a quake meeting certain criteria occurs.

I have nothing at all against how they do their job.  All
I was trying to point out was that quakes happen and
sometimes we have to wait a long time to find out the
details.  That was the reason I created my database of
P-wave arrival times to see if it would work in locating
at least the general area of the quake.

Hopefully, I have cleared this up.  I was afraid that my
comments would be misinterpreted and although Mr.
Morrissey may not have misinterpreted my words,
I wanted to make it clear that I wasn't saying that the
NEIC was falling down on the job.

"JD"


At 01:19 PM 12/20/99 -0600, S-T Morrissey
  wrote:

>Regarding the timeliness of earthquake reporting by NEIS:
>
>I would like to step in on their side and suggest that they do
>a good job (who doesn't make mistakes now and then?) with their
>limited resources.
>
>The days of having a funded "duty seismologist" just for the sake
>of the science are long past. With the great automation of the
>data retrieval and access, the usual scientific concern after a
>quake is how well it was recorded by the stations that are key to
>the event's contribution to understanding the earth. This is, of
>course, an after-the-fact assessment; the data are or are not.
>
>The funding for NEIS is strongly related to earthquake hazard
>assessment and the task of informing emergency management agencies
>worldwide about the human response required after a damaging quake.
>So they do have someone to respond with an official notice to
>anything that might be considered a risk. I don't know the details,
>but I am sometimes surprised as to whose name is on the report;
>it looks like everyone helps out.
>
>Regarding the "missing" event at 03:36 19 Dec: NEIS did report the
>previous IRIAN JAVA event at 17:44Z 18 December, and an event at 0048Z
>19 December in the Marianas (Mb 6.1), with a Mb 5.2 aftershock at
>04:42., and A 5.0 in Peru at 09:35. So they were on the job. Why
>the 5.6 was not listed is unknown.  Maybe the data was poor, since
>other agencies also omitted it. Not all earthquakes have a definitive
>P phase (usually required for teleseismic locations) with a radiation
>pattern that arrives at quality seismic stations; they just announce
>themselves (especially SW Pacific events) with a long rippling surface wave.
>NEIS  did list another mysterious event, a Ms 4.4 at Hokkaido, Japan ,
>at 13:30, 18 December, at an unusual depth of 124 km.
>
>Regards,
>Sean-Thomas
>
>
>
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