On this page you will find links to Microsoft Word (docx) and Excel files (xls) that contain the raw data from which the Survey Report and ultimately a published scientific paper were taken. About 400 respondents were asked to pass on observations of anything that occurred before the September 2010 earthquake that they thought might have been earthquake-related: meteorological, geophysical, behaviour of living creatures, electronics or simply sundry observations. These raw data are worth a browse because they contain some quite unexpected and thought-provoking stories and represent a small scientific advance. The same raw data are also available here as a downloadable pdf.
The abstract of that paper - published in the Natural Hazards, and Earth System Sciences journal - is as follows:
Previous published work after the Kobe and Izmit earthquakes (1995 and 1999 respectively) demonstrated some reported meteorological and animal behavior precursors were valid. Predictions were freshly tested for the Christchurch earthquake (M 7.1, 4 September, 2010). An internet survey with nearly 400 valid replies showed relative numbers of reports in precursor categories the day before the quake were statistically significantly different from those in the preceding three days (excess meteorological events and animal behavior). The day before the quake, there was also altered relative precursor class occurrence within 56 km compared with further away. Both these confirmed the earlier published work. Owners were woken up by unique pet behavior 12 times as often in the hour before the quake compared with other hours immediately before (statistically highly significant). Lost and Found pet reports were double normal the week before, and 4.5 times normal both the day before the quake, and 9 days before. (Results were again statistically significant). Unique animal behaviour before the quake was often repeated before the numerous aftershocks. These pet owners claimed an approximate 80% prediction reliability. However a preliminary telephone survey suggested that 75% of animals showed no precursor response at all. Some precursors seem real, but usefulness seemed mostly restricted to 7 cases where owners were in, or near, a place of safety through disruptive pet behavior, and one in which owners were diverted by a pet from being struck by falling fixtures. For a later 22-Feb-2011 M6.3 quake no reports of escape through warning by pets were recorded, which raises serious questions whether such prediction is practically useful, because lives claimed saved are extremely low compared with fatalities. It is shown the lost-pet statistics dates, correspond to ionospheric anomalies recorded using the GNSS satellite system and geomagnetic disturbance data, and claimed as precursory. The latter more objective measurements may be the way of the future as statistical treatment improves.