THE LOS ANGELES EARTHQUAKE : Myths About Quakes Crack Under Pressure of Scrutiny

Some callers to radio stations after Thursday’s quake said they were not surprised by the temblor. After all, Southern California had been experiencing “earthquake weather” for the last few days.

The stable manager of the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank recalled that “a couple of minutes before the quake” many of the horses seemed so nervous and jumpy that “you knew something was up.”

Students in Charles Sammis’ geology class at USC wanted to know afterward if it is true that earthquakes occur only in the morning and only during periods when the moon is full.

Given the unpredictability of quakes, it is inevitable that they have inspired numerous theories and myths.

Seeking a Reason

“I think people believe some of these myths for the same reason that they believe conspiracy theories in political assassinations,” historian John Weaver said. “They want to believe that there’s a reason, an explanation, for what happened--that it’s not a random thing.”

A three-year study of 3,500 California adults conducted by UCLA sociologist Ralph Turner found last year that one-third of the respondents take reports of “earthquake weather” seriously.

One problem: “No one can ever agree what it is,” said Caltech seismologist Kate Hutton.

Descriptions of “earthquake weather” range from still, muggy air--as Southern California seemed to have this week--to windy, muggy air. It has to be sunny--or it has to be overcast.

The fact that the Sylmar (1971) and Long Beach (1933) earthquakes struck in the cool of winter has not dispelled the notion.

UCLA’s Turner believes the term “earthquake weather” originated in Southern California around the turn of the century among transplanted Midwesterners who concluded that because there is such a thing as tornado weather, “there might also be earthquake weather.”

Whether quakes can be anticipated by the erratic behavior of animals has drawn more serious attention from researchers. But the answer is still unclear.

Animals Monitored in China

Monitoring of animals in China began in the 1970s after reports there of such phenomena as pigs jumping over fences and chickens flying to rooftops just before earthquakes hit.

The research was credited for large-scale evacuations before a 1975 earthquake in China, but a bigger temblor struck without warning the next year.

“It is true that animals are sensitive to a lot more things than we are,” Sammis said. “They are sensitive to higher frequencies of energy. And they might be able to smell dissolved gases resulting from stress and strain in the Earth. But no one really knows.”

“Don’t forget that animals are closer to the ground than we are,” Weaver pointed out.

sh Sunrise, Sunset

As for the morning-only theory, Sammis pointed to a study by two scientists that found that of the 13 major earthquakes in Southern California before Thursday’s, 10 occurred near sunrise or sunset. Astronomer Steven Kilston and geophysicist Leon Knopoff concluded that tidal forces from the sun and moon, stronger during those periods, were responsible for this tendency.

The pair also asserted that most of the temblors took place when the moon reached the northern-most point in its orbit around the Earth. And they said at the time that the moon would next be in that position in November of 1987.

Time and experience have dispelled some of the local myths propounded earlier in the century to reassure prospective residents and tourists.

A Santa Barbara writer reasoned in a 1919 book, “A real earthquake has not been felt here for over 100 years, so the danger . . . need cause little worry.” Six years later, a major earthquake damaged the city.

‘Mangled Victims’

A Los Angeles newspaper, noting the recovery of several “mangled victims” from floodwaters in Tennessee, editorialized that while earthquakes occasionally take lives, the victims are never mangled. And a San Bernardino newspaper baldly asserted in 1933: “An earthquake never killed anyone.”

Perhaps the oldest of the earthquake theories is also the most difficult to analyze scientifically.

It was enunciated Thursday morning by a Carson woman whose son was being served with an arrest warrant by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies when the quake hit.

She told the youth: “God is punishing you.”

Times staff writers Larry Gordon, Lois Timnick and Kirk Jackson contributed to this story.