by Terrence Aym

Created on: March 16, 2011

A former United States Geological Survey scientist says a major quake on the West Coast is imminent.

Jim Berkland predicts earthquakes…accurately.

Never heard of him? Perhaps you should—especially if you live on or near the West Coast of the United States, or know someone that does.

Anyone with an average 80 percent success rate predicting earthquakes should command attention, and lately Berkland has been in the limelight of the national media.

"The people that say you cannot predict earthquakes, they don't know what they are talking about," Berkland told the Santa Cruz Sentinel during a 2009 interview.

Appearing on late night radio shows for many years, since the great quake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan the retired geologist has been finding his booking calendar full. His unpronounceable and difficult-to-spell website, syzygyjob.com, has crashed several times after his latest appearances on FOXNews with Neil Cavuto and the popular talk radio host Michael Savage's show.

While Berkland has scored many direct hits with earthquake predictions—they fall within his self-described "seismec window"—his greatest claim to fame was his accurate prediction of the powerful 1989 temblor that rocked San Fransisco four days before it occurred.

Now the earthquake prognosticator admits he's worried about the prospects of a strong quake hitting the West Coast of the US sometime during March 2011, particularly around March 19th.

The "ring of fire" that encircles the Pacific rim includes the region from Alaska south to South America. During the past several years earthquake and volcanic activity has been on the upswing all along the rim except on the northeastern perimeter.

Berkland believes that's about to change. He told as much to Cavuto: "The month of October, March, and April are the three most devastating earthquakes in terms of damage in the San Francisco Bay Area in history. And we are having on the 19th of this month not only the full moon, but within an hour the closest approach of the moon to the earth until the year 2016. The next day is the equinoctial tides. So you're bringing together three of the maximum tide raising forces. We know about the ocean tides. But there is also an Earth tide. And there is a tide in the ground water. All of these help to release sudden, built up strain, and cause earthquakes."  

Although thought by many of his peers to be a maverick, Berkland remains unfazed. His track record far outstrips any of his

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>