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Earthquake Prediction Months In Advance
eegad writes "A UCLA seismologist named Vladimir Keilis-Borok claims earthquakes can be predicted months in advance. In the article at the University of California Newswire, he claims that the "team including experts of pattern recognition, geodynamics, seismology, chaos theory, statistical physics and public safety ... has developed algorithms to detect precursory earthquake patterns." It also says "the team's current predictions have not missed any earthquake, and have had its two most recent ones come to pass." They predict "an earthquake of at least magnitude 6.4 by Sept. 5, 2004, in a region that includes the southeastern portion of the Mojave Desert, and an area south of it." We'll see if they're right."
They got rid of the old guy with his knee that "acts up" right before an earthquake?
well, it's nothing one behind the ear wouldn't cure
While this is a great advance, the real deal will be when we get to the point we can predict precisely enough to WARN the people living in these areas.
As in, hey two weeks from friday, leave the area for a day or two.
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In June of 2003, this team predicted an earthquake of magnitude 6.4 or higher would strike within nine months in a 310-mile region of Central California whose southern part includes San Simeon, where a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck on Dec. 22.
In July of 2003, the team predicted an earthquake in Japan of magnitude 7 or higher by Dec. 28, 2003, in a region that includes Hokkaido. A magnitude 8.1 earthquake struck Hokkaido on Sept. 25, 2003.
In 6-9 months there will be an earthquake within 310 miles of San Francisco of at least 4.0.
This is fun!
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Coming soon to a TV near you: The earthquake channel! Get your 10 day seismic activity forecast!
clifgriffin > blog
For years scientists have known about the signs that the faults give off before an earthquake occurs, but most scientist are skeptical that they'll ever be able to accurately predict them because there are so many environmental factors to consider. Read more on PBS's microsite called Savage Earth, The Restless Planet: Earthquakes. It talks about prediction and whatnot.
There's been other studies like this.
For example, 30-odd years ago, some school did research looking in newspapers of the last 30 days before an earthquake for missing dog reports. Their results showed a large increase right around the time an earthquake happened in the area of the quake.
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He made an earthquake prediction in Japan based on radio waves, and he actually came pretty close. Close enough that his ideas are worth more investigation.
If this turns out to be true, it would be a disaster for the economy in an area. Would you hang around or invest in a place where there's a big quake known to be coming in the next few months? It'd be like being told you've got a 100% chance of contracting cancer in the next few months. Although it helps you prepare, life can't be normal after that.
This Russian group first got attention in the US seismology community when it "predicted" the Loma Prieta (Silicon Valley) quake of 1989. The technique performs spatial-temporal statistical analysis of weaker earthquakes that proceed large quakes. The first President Bush even asked the US Geological Survey to look into this.
The method may work, but it has not yet passed the scientifically required of repoducibility by scientists outside the Russian research group. Several leading US seismologists have tried reproducing this analysis method without success. Either the method is devilishly difficult to reporduce, important details have [perhaps intentionally] not been published, or it really doesn't work. Furthemore, you dont see the US results in press, because people generally dont publish negative results. Hopefully the reproducibility issues will be resolved and there will be a successful prediction method.
(Read my lips: cold fusion)
People expect that earthquake prediction would be accurate to within a few hours, so that evacuations can be accomplished, while avoiding unneccessary evacuations. The trouble is, evacuations are expensive, have their own hazards, and it's going to be incredibly hard to choose the lesser evil of bad evacuation timing, versus the present practice of not evacuating and being unprepared for the quake.
What would really help is a preparation protocol that can be syncronized more accurately with risk. If an earthquake could be predicted with a graduated probability, then gradually more disruptive preparation steps could be taken as the risk rises.
There is no doubt in my mind that this is a breakthrough in earthquake science, and that the researchers who developed this so called "tail wags the dog" method should be congratulated for their achievement.
One thing bothers me, however. Okay, so we know that there's going to be an earthquake somewhere in the world. The question is, what can we do?
In an affluent country/county, with educated individuals and a well organized emergency response force, there are several things to be done. First, evacuation procedures are begun. Secondly, the rescue and medical teams can be put on standby. Many similar actions can be taken.
However, the vast majority of the world that experiences earthquakes with some consistency can't do quite as much with such foreknowledge. First, most of their buildings are not specially enhanced to survive earthquakes (witness Iran, an extreme case of unpreparedness I admit but it serves my pont). Secondly, the population is highly dense and these people don't necessarily comprehend the danger, making evacuation procedures much less effective. Thirdly, the emergency police/medical presence in such areas is pitiful. Finally, the state itself does not have the necessary resources to carry out effective measures - they have to wait until foreign aid pours in. Now, the question is, will the U.S. grant emergency aid to, say, Iraq, because someone predicted that an earthquake would occur? Not likely. And if they don't get the money, these emergency operations don't get underway in any meaningful manner.
It seems to me that the focus has been diverted from building the infrastructure necessary to cope with earthquakes (in terms of buildings as well as emergency care) to instead predicting them in advance. As I said, if predicting them won't do too much good, why are we concentrating more in that area than in the one that actually WILL make a difference.
Hell, its probably the same deal as with research in diseases. The people with the money to conduct research don't have the same priorities/problems as those for whom research could benefit most.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic.
It is apparently now possible to locate the epicenters of tiny earthquakes ("microquakes") that occur very often, and they found that these often occur in the same spot, which would tell us that that location is a place where no bigger Earthquake could happen, as the tension is released often.
Even if we assume that we can conclude the other way round (saying, if the microquakes cease for a while, the probability of a bigger quake right in that spot would rise - which is probably true sometimes), still there would be no information about when the bigger quake would occur or how much bigger it was.
Sure, one could estimate the energy buildup (maybe, in some way), but the time when the bigger quake happens is still unknown. Also, the absence of microquakes is just telling that no more of these are happening - noone can know if this is because tension is building up or if for some reason this place is now lubricated better and tends not to lock anymore.
What one would need is a reliable way to measure the tension underground, and still it wouldn't be possible to know when a big quake happens. It would give a result like "Uh this tension is really high. Better we leave right now and dont come back until the big quake happened."
So far, the only sensible protection against Earthquakes is either buildings that withstand earthquakes (or dont kill people when they collapse... well the first approach sure is favoured ;) or not building at all where quakes happen.
Here's my prediction: "somewhere on earth, before the end of time, the earth will have at least a 0.1-magnitude earthquake!"
The point is, that only claimed that that had no false negatives. But they didn't discuss another critical aspect: how many false positives they had, and how tight their specificity is.
Without those details, you miss a lot.
This all seems like a hoax to me, BUT... lets pretend for a moment that it is absolutely true.
If earthquake prediction became the norm, imagine the damage to local economies here in the US!
Imagine this scenario...
"Earthquake, 2 months from now, Seattle area".
Ok, what do you, a business owner, do? Pack up and get out. Hell, you've got 2 months to do it.
Ok, what do you, a would-be tourist on vacation, do? Pick an alternate destination.
Ok, what do you, a local citizen, do? Panic. Perhaps pack the family and leave. Perhaps stay and stockpile supplies if your employer hasn't left yet.
I think it's very obvious that natural disaster prediction would be devastating for local and regional economies. In the big picture, as local economies start their own self-destruction, it'll have a bigger effect on the nation as a whole.
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Scientists have known about these advanced prediction techniques for decades...
Unfortunatly, the original research was destroyed in an earthquake in 1987.
The key is to start out general and work down to more specific predictions as the methodology is improved and you can build an adequate database and figure out what parts of your model are hogwash and which parts contribute. If they can get one or more parts of the prediction accurate at the 9 month mark, then there is a chance that they can become even more accurate over lesser ranges as time progresses. Also, the ability to predict a major earthquake out at the 9 month mark would be quite welcome for municipalities who are planning emergency preparedness. Imagine being able to budget so that your emergency personnel have the materials on hand that they need. Imagine being able to say "Ok, no-one go on vacation during the August-September timeframe as we are probably going to need all the bodies we can lay our hands on. Just because in the past it has not been possible to predict this sort of thing accurately does not mean it will not be possible in the future and therefore is not worth spending money on. Robert H
Giving a value on the Richter scale is not really meaningfull. You can have a 7 earthquake doing almost no damage if it happens far below earth surface and big damage with a 4 one near the surface in a low developped country.
It all depends on where the earthquake takes place.
You should use an estimate on the Mercalli scale. I find it more relevant.
Richter scale is all about energy released, Mercalli scale is all about damage/lost of lives which really is what matters.
Iraq: war to save the U
One of my fondest memories from high school was Iben Browning's earthquake prediction. He claimed a massive earth quake was going to shake the New Madrid fault around 1990. See http://geology.about.com/library/weekly/aa030903a. htm. Several months before the predicted date we had a 4.x quake during school. Everyone thought this was clear evidence Browning's prediction would come true. The school board cancelled class for 2 days surrounding the predicted date. No earthquake ever occurred. He helped us out and made the merchants in our area who jacked up their prices rich.
Who remembers the San Jose earthquake back in the early 90s? who here knew that there was a conference on Seismology there that same day.
probably the same number of seismologist that knew an earth quake was coming.
BTW, the conference was cut short.
The most important prediction method is to antipicate the maximum horizontal force resulting from an earth quake. A force execeeding 10% the amout of earth's surface gravity, called a "g", at one Hertz can collapse a poorly designed building or overpass. 200% g is observed in the largest quakes. A guide to destruction in terms of "g" is here .
The United States Geological Survey has spent a lot of effort predicting maximum forces. this is based on the location of previous large earthquakes and local soil conditions among other factors. This has resulting in relatively low death rates of quakes of similar size. For example last month's central California quake and Iranian quakes were about the same size with death tolls of 3 and 30,000. Ditto 1994 Northridge and 1995 Kobe Japan with tolls of 55 and 6,000.
I wonder what this might do to the insurance business. Lets say perhaps they predict a 7 or greater in LA in the next 4 months... Now a smart person living in that area would go beef up their earthquake or homeowners insurance (or buy some if they don't have it already).
But a smarter insurance company might decide not to sell any more quake insurance until after the deadline if you live in that area.
So now we know they are coming but can't do much to protect ourselves other than getting out of the area.
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You know, if you *really* want to test your own systems, go grab a copy of OpenSTA.
Reasonably flexible and GPL'd.
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