Open AccessComment on ‘Evaluating the statistical validity beyond chance of ‘VAN’ earthquake precursors’ by Francesco Mulargia and Paolo Gasperini
Author(s) -
Varotsos P.,
Alexopoulos K.,
Lazaridou M.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
geophysical journal international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.302
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1365-246X
pISSN - 0956-540X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-246x.1992.tb00553.x
Subject(s) - geology , earthquake prediction , seismology
The paper by Mulargia & Gasperini (1992) concluded that ‘the apparent success of VAN predictions can be confidently ascribed to chance’. This conclusion contradicts our earlier publication and hence a simultaneous publication of our reply was absolutely necessary in order to give the reader the opportunity to judge the correctness of the arguments of both sides. However, the Editor ‘did not see the paper by Mulargia & Gasperini as a comment to our earlier published papers and hence did not accelerate the process of ‘Comment and Reply’ pairs by sending to our group their paper before publication’. In view of this decision of the Editor we cannot proceed here to a simultaneous reply. However, we would like to emphasize the following. By means of a detailed statistical treatment, Hamada (1992) has recently analysed exactly the same VAN data as Mulargia & Gasperini and has concluded that: