  Significant advances, both in the theoretical understanding of rupture
processes in heterogeneous media and in the methodology for characterizing
critical behavior, allows us to reanalyze the evidence for criticality and
especially log-periodicity in the previously reported chemical anomalies that
preceded the Kobe earthquake. The ion ($Cl^-$, $K^+$, $Mg^{++}$, $NO_3^{-}$ and
$SO_4^{--}$) concentrations of ground-water issued from deep wells located near
the epicenter of the 1995 Kobe earthquake are taken as proxies for the
cumulative damage preceding the earthquake. Using both a parametric and
non-parametric analysis, the five data sets are compared extensively to
synthetic time series. The null-hypothesis that the patterns documented on
these times series result from noise decorating a simple power law is rejected
with a very high confidence level.
