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NASA Quakesim Predicts 15 Out of 16 CA Quakes

Posted by samzenpus on from the good-odds dept.

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.""

10 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...it only predicts location, not WHEN the quakes will occur.

    Still cool though.

    1. Re:But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      To clarify the post above, he's asking how many false positives are there. It's no good if I make 1000 predictions and 15 matched the 16 quakes.

  2. But... by Spad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How many did it predict that never happened?

  3. Re:From how far out? by angle_slam · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It's not as helpful as you would think. It predicts where an earthquake might happen from 1/1/2000 to 12/31/2009. It just turns out that some of the predicted quakes have happened.

    Unlike with hurricanes, Californians are still not able to prepare for an earthquake, just react to it when it happens.

    FWIW, I felt the Parkfield earthquake, which was a magnitude 5.9 about 150 miles south of me. My office building just gently swayed. People I talked to on the ground felt nothing.

  4. what about false positives? by discontinuity · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Misleading Title by MalleusEBHC · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Misleading Title by mblase · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      Well, it's not that useful if you're planning a vacation, but if you're someone who's looking to buy a house somewhere in the state of California which you intend to pay insurance on for the next twenty years, it's tremendously valuable (especially to the insurance agencies).

    2. Re:Misleading Title by WalksOnDirt · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This could be quite usefull to the insurance industry. Now they know of places they should not insure against earthquakes.

      Of course, this effect is probably of negative public utility.

      --
      a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
  6. Re:Sorry, Clicked submit too early: by ebrandsberg · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The benefit that this provides isn't knowing when a quake will occur, but allow pre-planning to save lives by adjusting building codes to account for risk. Not all areas need the same level of structural integrity, and such research allows this to be used to save money in some areas, and lives in others.

  7. Re:Reminds me of early Tornado forecasting by sakusha · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, it is impossible to predict tornados. It IS possible to DETECT tornados as quickly as they form.