Slashdot Mirror
NASA Quakesim Predicts 15 Out of 16 CA Quakes
Saint Aardvark writes "NASA's QuakeSim project has successfully predicted15 out of 16 of California's earthquakes with magnitude > 5, including 11 since the map was published in 2002. "So far, the technique has only missed one earthquake, a magnitude of 5.2, on June 15, 2004, under the ocean near San Clemente Island.""
I think it's a fair to ask how far in advance the quakes were predicted.
...it only predicts location, not WHEN the quakes will occur.
Still cool though.
So, have they predicted when California is going to fall into the ocean?
How many did it predict that never happened?
When they first started to try to predict tornados (right before they happened) a lot of people thought it was impossible, but they managed to do it. And this was before they had Doppler 8 million, just with changes in the pressure and such. A lot of people have tried to say predicting earthquakes will be impossible, but I think with enough research and data it will be as easy and predictable as tornados.
It looks like it just says where an earthquake might occur. Valuable, but I'd argue this is NOT equivalent to predicting a quake. You can't evacuate an area and have people wait a while for the quake.
That means it won't be able to predict Quake IV :(
Do they have a multiplayer version of this? Will it run on Linux? ;)
Hmm, I can just really fanatically disturbed people trying to make Sims of the Bay Area in SimCity and then running Quake simulations to see if they can compare with the results from NASA...
*shudder* That thought was strangely appealling to me actually.
Seriously though, I all this prediction technology that exists and yet we still have no idea when Mt. Saint Helens will erupt again and to what extent. I wonder if we have "lava butterfles" that disturb prediction algorithms for earthquakes and volcano's? Or some equivalent therein.
Oops, how did this get here?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Check out the archived version here
From the blurb:
Following recent seismic activity in California and the threatened eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State. Forum takes a look at scientific advancements in the study of earthquakes and volcanoes.
Host: Michael Krasny
Guests:
I think they're triggering them. This calls for a tinfoil beanie the size of California.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's easy to "predict" something that you cause yourself.
/me puts on tinfoil hat.
I predit that I will put my tinfoil hat on!
Ooh, I must be psychic or something!
They're just putting their earthquake machines through the paces before they use it to ensure W's re-election, and to make a tidy profit for Haliburton, which owns a lot of soon-to-be-coastal property along the California-Nevada border.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
The article is vague. No mention of whether there were any false positives. People will get fed up really quickly if told to evacuate and no quake comes.
Also, it's not clear to me that what their predicting ("hotspots") is the same thing as predicting when an earthquake will happen. How long do individual "hotspots" exist in one place?
Still, earthquake and other Earth-sci prediction simulations can be useful. Just probably better for long-term planning than individual predictions.
Am I the only one that suddenly thought that Maxis had finally gone too far in it's crazy game ideas when they first skimmed the title?
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
I wouldn't exactly say they predicted these quakes. From what the article says, it seems like they just have a list of places where they say a >5 quake will occur between 2000 and 2010. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. Anything under a 6 is less annoying to a Californian than a fly buzzing around your house. For anything over a 6.5 or so, being this accurate about WHERE the quake will occur is next to useless if you can't be more accurate about WHEN it will occur.
This is not meant to diminish the accomplishments of these researchers. I'm sure this is a very important stepping stone to greater advances. However, this won't be useful to most people until they can predict with much greater accuracy the magnitude of the quake and the timeframe in which it will occur.
Quakesim is obviously a typo of Maxis' new game [i]SimQuake[/i].
AFAIK it's a game where you control a Quake junkie. I've heard you get bonus points for getting the best mouse and mousepads but beware the "upgrade cycle" event which will dock your player some valuable dollars everytime a new version of Quake is released.
Bored? Visit my exciting counter page!
Just as World Wind is starting to recover after we quite literally killed it's server (it was down all over the weekend due to /. related hardware failure) and is beginning the long, slow road to recovery, we turn the Slashdot spigot on the good folks at QuakeSim.
So it wasn't enough that we already Slashdotted the world, now we're going to end up causing an earthquake! Oh the humanity!
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
This sounds like a really cool endeavor, but why is this funded by NASA? NASA takes a lot of flak for using up lots of money and being a big administration, and its not surprising to see why with projects like this under its wings.
In the end, shouldn't such earthquake research be under a different organization?
The space unintentionally left unblank.
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
int lat, lon;
for (lat = -90; lat <= 90; lat++)
for (lon = -180; lon <= 179; lon++)
printf("prediction: lat=%d +/- 0.5, lon=%d +/- 0.5\n", lat, lon);
}
The articles cites don't speak much on methodology beyond using historical data (since 1932) to predict areas where magnitude 5+ earthquakes are likely. It would be interesting to read about the methods and determine if they can predict larger (6 - 6.5+) damaging earthquakes of a larger magnitude. Or more significantly, earthquakes whose damage potential (as measured using the Mercalli scale) is high.
Geologists have been using historical data to predict future potential for many years. Stream flow data are used to predict flood potential; historic hurricane landfall data are used to predict beach erosion potential; lahar ages are used to predict volcanic mud flow damage potential.
What is more useful that merely predicting areas where magnitude 5+ earthquakes are likely to occur is predicting the frequency and areal extent of damage potential -- Mercalli intensity VIII +, roughly correlating to Richter magnitude 6.5+.
Then again, we Americans continue to rebuild on 100 year flood plains, hurricane-savaged barrier islands and earthquake-prone areas. The engineering geology I learned was to avoid areas where Mother Nature is going to win in the long run.
Murphy's law predicts that the one that will sink california is the 1 in 16 they miss.
-?-
I heard that Mexico City was using a quake-prediction system that warned the population about most quakes around 30 seconds before they happened. L.A. declined the technology because they figured that harm caused by the panic would outweigh the quake risk. There would be a fair amount of false alarms.
They figured the panic would cause more deaths and injuries than the small quakes and in big quakes 30 seconds is not enough to do anything about biggies anyhow.
Table-ized A.I.
How can we rule out that this is just a cover story for the Bush administration's initial tests of their new doomsday device?
Damn it, this time they've gone too far!!!
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
But can it see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
Mind you I didn't read the article.
...But then again, who knows, maybe they did hype it up some time ago... however, this is the first I have heard of this effort.
But my point has nothing and everything to do with that.
As far as the field of "Earthquake Prediction" goes or any metric forecast for the fact of the matter, this is the first time I have heard of results before an announcement of intent.
And I wholeheartedly applaud that.
It's great to see an endeavor that "just does" without yapping it up to create the hype and controversy. Mind you, I understand it's NASA and thus publicly funded, but still, they rely upon Congressional approval for funding. I simply find it amazing to see this research performed under the radar until proven results were found. Such a course of conduct is quite admirable and after seeing hype after hype about other disperately related projects that talked up computational predictions of natural phenomena only to produce such an obscene amount of false positives as to be utterly useless.
Some people are working on an earthquake alert system that detects an earthquake at the epicenter and sends an wireless signal out to others. Because radio wave travel faster than ground waves, the alert reaches people seconds before the quake hits. Its not much of a warning, but it may be enough time to shut down some processes, park the heads on the disk drive, turn on the backup generator, etc.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Actually, what would be really great is if the scientists DO predict where/when the Big One will hit, provided they convince Congress to hold a picnic on that spot at just the right time. It doesn't look as though it'd be in time for this election, though, so we'll just have to put up with the drivel and interpretations of said drivel by pundits who haven't the foggiest what they're talking about but can scrounge free drinks from the major backers.
Hmmm. Make that Congress and most of the US media, holding a picnic at said earthquake spot. The collective IQ of America would easily doubnle as a result.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
...and I don't know if it really worked, but there used to be a local tornado predictor "they" said worked fairly well. This is when folks had analog rotary dial tuners and black and white TV sets. You would set the TV to channel 2, adjust brightness to almost pure dark. If a tornado got close to you, a white static band of some size would appear vertically in the screen, and you would know to head to *serious* shelter if at all possible, or take any other precautions or last ditch provisions, such as ... well, use your imagination of what you might find amusing at that time. Allegedly it worked, I used to do it, but never saw the white band, also never had a tornado that close either when I was doing that. It was pushed in the media at the time though.
I could swear I was really playing virtual skeeball. - Amy
To quote Laugh In, a show that was so much better than SNL is (or ever was), and was recorded in (sarcastically)"Beautiful downtown Burbank!":
"Good evening- and now, the news. Today, California experienced an earthquake. President Regan (show was recorded when he was still Governor- the audience thought the 'prediction' was hilarious) is concerned that Berkeley will shift even FURTHER to the left."
Also reminds me of the Tom Toles cartoon. A CA Couple watching the news-"The mudslides are over, the earthquakes have stopped, the riots finished." In the ocean nearby, are hundreds of frogs, and one's asking the other, "Now?"
Please help metamoderate.
This guy predicted a major earthquake in Southern CA by early September 2004. At the time, he was 2 for 3. I guess his average just took a serious hit.
Been done: one that comes to mind quick= on Sim2, your chars can play The Sims1 I've heard
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
.. that you DON'T see that gets you
everytime
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
Tag lost or not installed.
As a geologist, I do find the prospect of earthquake prediction quite exciting. I even worked a few doors down from Dr. Keilis-Borok (predicted Japan and San Simeon, failed prediction in Southern California) this summer at UCLA, doing some earthquake research.
0 5071107.htm
Dr. K-B's approach used statistical analysis and was quite an interesting idea. His paper even correlated some previous earthquakes (such as Landers and Northridge) using his "tail-wag-the-dog" method to try and verify his results.
Anyway, regarding these latest predictions by John Rundle and his team, I decided to read the paper. You can actually find it here.
I'm not understanding how they succesfully predicted certain things or how useful his theories are. They are saying they predicted three of the earthquakes that happened in Big Bear.
From what I am understanding, the way their method works is that it shows potential "hot spots" for earthquakes for the next 10 years. That means the whole Big Bear/San Bernardino Mountains area should show up as a hotspot on their map. This doesn't mean they have succesfully predicted all 3 earthquakes though if I understand this right. They predicted the potential for one M5.0 or greater there withing the next 10 years. The fact that there were three of them is just icing on the cake I suppose?
I also can't find any information that shows how many false-positives they nailed as well. This might be kind of hard since they won't know about false-positives until after their prediction period is up in 2010. Without that data though, we can't really be sure of how good this method works. And even if it misses some, it only reduces the chance of an earthquake happening in the next X years to some percentage (which we already have certain data for from the USGS. 67% chance of a M6.7 or greater striking the Bay Area before 2030 and an 80% chance of a M7.0 or greater striking Southern California before 2030).
Admitedly, if this method is promising, it might put better constraints on the data though, so we could say something like, "97% chance of an M7.0 striking within 10 years." However, this still won't help all that much in the scheme of things.
Additional information:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/0410
John Rundle's Paper
I've been watching that lunatic Keilis-Borok for quite some time and you have not described his activities accurately. K-B never claimed to have accurately predicted more than the 2 quakes in Japan and San Simeon. He made a well-publicised recent prediction that there would be a 6.5 quake at a specific spot near the Mohave Desert. He was wrong, no quake occurred, the prediction has expired for months and still not even a minor quake in the predicted zone. The Mohave prediction was claimed to be the 3rd in a series of predictions from the same models, hey, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
I read K-B's papers and analyzed his theories and they are complete horseshit, unscientific garbage. I am not a seismologist, but I used to work as a data analyst with professional seismologists, so I know what I'm talking about. K-B is a nut. He's like the guy in the movie "Pi" that thinks he's found the secret equation that can predict the stock market.
I've been watching that lunatic Keilis-Borok for quite some time and you have not described his activities accurately. K-B never claimed to have accurately predicted more than the 2 quakes in Japan and San Simeon. He made a well-publicised recent prediction that there would be a 6.5 quake at a specific spot near the Mohave Desert.
Which I believe I mostly said, though I give him a little more credit than yourself. Regardless, I did say he predicted the two earthquakes in Japan and San Simeon as well as a failed prediction for the Mojave Desert (which ironically, is in Southern California).
Also, K-B was *against* announcing the prediction. The chair person of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at UCLA urged him to announce his results. He begrudingly agreed. Throughout the prediction time frame, Dr. K-B admitted there was only a slight chance the Mojave prediction would even be right.
I read K-B's papers and analyzed his theories and they are complete horseshit, unscientific garbage. I am not a seismologist, but I used to work as a data analyst with professional seismologists, so I know what I'm talking about.
In case you'd like to really read K-B's paper of his methods, you can find it here. Using the same methods he used to predict the Japan and San Simeon quakes, he was able to backtrack and use data to show that his method could have predicted five other earthquakes. There really is nothing phony about this and it's simply good science to test your results against a "control."
I suppose I should end this with my own disclaimer: I've worked for the Southern California Earthquake Center. And like you, I also know what I'm talking about.
I dont think it will help many people at least not me.
I'm buying a condo about 1000ft from the Hayward fault line which is overdue and on the QuakeSim map, but I still dont know if I should buy erathquake insurrance or not.
It wont help insurance companies either, since most earthquake insurance in CA is provided by a government fund. Plus if you live in a fault zone your lender will most likely have you pay for quake insurance.
Now, the pros and cons of quake insurance:
Pros:
- If it happens. Which in some place is likely (as the study show).
Cons:
- The premium is high (about 0.5% to 1% of your house value a year)
- The deductible is very high: 15% of the house value. This mean that unless your house is a major, you wont get anything from the insurance.
- Emergency funds: The state and Federal government have emergency funds, as well as prefered rate loans for the aftermath. If you have insurance, it will be harder to access those funds.
- In case of total loss, you give the key back to the lender. Bad for your credit, and only if you dont have a lot of equity in the house already.
- Insurance solvability: if a really big one comes the insurance fund may not be able to pay everybody.
I think I saw a statistic that was less than 30% of Californians have quake insurance. Its going up after each significant quake, then decline.
Should've used the Quake logo icon.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Ok, ten years is a *long* time. However, if I want to buy proerpty or sell insurance, then it is interesting to know this (not so if you already live there). However, effects of quakes are very difficult to predict, even if you know the strength. It depends upon local gound structure, and building construction.
See my journal, I write things there
What is NASA doing predicting earthquakes in Canada (CA)?
Or did you mean CA.US?
Hopefully they will take advantage of it and secede from the Union.
Wasn't it nice that the Clinton administration funded this for him then?
RFTA, the perdictions were done by 1/1/2000.
A successful "weak" quake prediction is defined as beating background probability. For example Southern California (Mohave desert to Mexican border) experiences slightly more than one M5 a year on average; or a M7 in 20 years. Even so, no prediction method method so far, except perhaps Rundle's, has achieved weak prediction.
However weak prediction is psychologically unsatisfactory for the public. They generally want to know damaging quakes (>M6) within a month in a county size area. This is a thousand times less probable than a successful weak prediction. Furthermore, the tornado and hurricane people found that the public will ignore severe weather prediction with less than a 20% probability of occuring in one day. It will take a lot of work to have successful strong predictions.
Mexico City is in a unique position - the killer quakes they have there often occur far away, but the crummy soil under the City has devastating effects for even distant quakes. So the idea is to detect a big but faraway quake and send advance notice to the City to duck, cover, pray, etc. Since the waves from the quaje travel at about the speed of sound it still takes seconds to minutes for the quake to arrive at the City. Similar systems are in use in Japan to do useful stuff like shut down natural gas pipelines, where even a few seconds notice can be useful.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"