Shaky premise
Re “Troubling quake pattern found,” Jan. 24
Why do people insist on coming up with an average to estimate the years we can expect between major earthquakes? In this case, averages are useless.
The Times cites 137 years as the average span over 700 years for the five major Carrizo Plain Fault events in 1310, 1393, 1585, 1640 and 1857. Simple subtraction shows spans of 83, 192, 55 and 217 years, and it’s now been 152 years since the last one.
I grew up in L.A. and experienced the Sylmar quake, and “average” fails to offer the comfort of predictability. Why not just say “earthquakes will occur in Southern California. Be prepared at all times”?
Kristi Lofthus Kleijn
Stocksund, Sweden
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