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Scientists Predict Earthquake's Location and Strength
A new study has been published in Nature Geoscience (abstract) detailing how scientists correctly anticipated the location and strength of an earthquake earlier this year. On September 5th, a 7.6 earthquake rocked Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula. That region had seen earthquakes of (roughly) magnitude 7 in 1853, 1900, and 1950, so "geoscientists had forecast that a magnitude 7.7 to 7.8 quake should occur around the year 2000, plus or minus 20 years."
"The Nicoya Peninsula is prone to earthquakes because it's an area of subduction, where the Cocos Plate is pushing underneath the Caribbean Plate, moving at a rate of about 8.5 centimeters per year. When regions such as this suddenly slip, they produce a megathrust earthquake. Most of the world's largest earthquakes — including the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku-Oki quake in Japan in 2011 and the magnitude 9.15 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake in 2004, both of which produced devastating tsunamis — fall into this category. .. The close study of this region allowed scientists to calculate how much strain was building in the fault and in May 2012 they published a study in which they identified two locked spots capable of producing an earthquake similar to the one in 1950. In September of that year, the landward patch ruptured and produced the earthquake. The offshore one is still locked and capable of producing a substantial but smaller earthquake, an aftershock with a magnitude as high as 6.9, the researchers say."
"When asked how they discovered this information, scientists said 'we just asked yo mamma where she'd be on the fifth, ohhhhhhhhhhhh!' Upon hearing this, passers by offered this reporter gifts of ice for that 'sick burn.'"
Great, so live in a tent in your back yard for your entire adult life then?
With a window like that, any fool can "correctly predict" just about anything.
Beware the stock market crash of 2034, plus or minus 20 years. Don't say you haven't been warned.
I predict hoots of derision heaped upon this story.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Over 20 years ago I predicted that in late December, 2013 a group of scientists would announce that they had successfully predicted an earthquake. Unfortunately due to my data from back then having disappeared, you'll just have to take my word for it.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Okay, in fairness, I went back and read TFS, and it looks like the real problem here is Soulskill's poor writing skills. A transitional sentence was needed to indicate that the "+/- 20 years" prediction was an old prediction, and that scientists did a new analysis in 2012 that suggested that a large earthquake was imminent (and which happened not long thereafter).
No. Two different studies. The old one gave a 40 year window. The one done in May of 2012 predicted an imminent earthquake due to two potential lock spots, the earthquake then happened in September of 2012.
Some people will still not evacuate.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
This is beyond useless.
I live in a country with significant seismic activity.
We know for hundreds of years that every 30 to 50 years a big (7.6 - 7.8) earthquake will happen. We even know where the epicenter will be. We know how it will propagate.
It's been 36 years since the last one so many people who live in problem areas are beginning to get nervous. But we don't know when it will happen. Could be tomorrow or ten years from now.