Anticipating Earthquakes

dnahelix writes "Science @ NASA reports 'High above Earth where seismic waves never reach, satellites may be able to detect earthquakes--before they strike.'"

Comments

Re:California centric

[Mostly Harmless]

"The planet does not revolve around the US. There are many places where earthquakes are a major part of everyday life."

You are absolutely correct. The problem is that this article is coming from NASA, and last I checked, NASA is a US government agency. So, we'll be using our resources and spending our money to develop a technology that we'll probably be nice enough to let the rest of the world use. So read about the San Andreas fault and say thank you.

Re:Then what?

[Captain Nitpick]

And with most people away from town, bad guys could break in to a lot of stores and so on, with little risk of being caught. Or perhaps there could be panic situations with riots where people get robbed, injured or killed when everybody finds out about the earthquake. It's a nice technology, but there are many questions around it that need to be solved.

The questions have been solved. Emergency managers on the US east and gulf coasts (and, I assume, their counterparts in other nations affected by tropical cyclones) have plenty of experience running evacuations without causing the collapse of civilization.

This of course assumes several days notice. If only hours or minutes are available, a tornado siren approach would be more effective.

Most import prediction: construction standards

[peter303]

Sort-term earthquake prediction- hours to weeks- is pyschologically comforting, but not that important in saving lives or property. One needs to predict the maximum likely earthquake force in a neighborhood in order to properly contruct buildings and roads to last for at least 30 years and save lives. In this area the USGS and State Geologic Surveys have made great progress. Case in point: The 1994 Northridge, California earthquake and 1995 Kobe, Japan were the same magnitude, yet the second killed ONE HUNDRED TIMES more people than the first. The success of the Northridge quake was partially attributed to luck and partly to that Los Angeles had more newer buildings than Japan that had implemented the more serious construction codes. It is tragic that M5 quakes that barely spill coffee in San Jose, California, but level mud-brick buildings and kill hundreds in some third world country.

I've been in three near M7 quakes in California and I can testify how psychologically traumatic a sudden quake is. Short term prediction would be comforting. It would also save some lives in large buildings like schools and stadiums (even though the 1989 San Francisco quake happended during a Wolrd Series baseball game without fatallity). And in reving up rescue crews.