Earthsky FAQs
Is it possible to predict earthquakes?
Earthquake damage. PhillipC
Unfortunately, there is still no way to predict when an earthquake will strike - only where they are most likely to occur.
03-11-2010 - Earth
The multiple earthquakes that stuck Chile in February and March of 2010 caused many people to ask if earthquake prediction is possible. Scientists have a pretty good idea of where an earthquake is likely to strike, but there is still no way to tell exactly when it will happen, or how big it will be.
Earthquakes are caused by plate tectonics – the continuous movement of immense plates of land along Earth’s surface. Plates bump up against each other at ruptures known as ‘fault lines.’ The side-to-side or up-and-down motion along fault lines causes enormous shock waves, which are felt as earthquakes. Scientists know where these fault lines are, and have made maps of where earthquakes are most likely to happen.
EarthSky spoke with Kathleen Tierney of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado. She said that because no one can make predictions about earthquakes far in advance, people in high-risk areas always need to be prepared.
Some communities have warning systems. Earthquake-prone Japan developed a national alert system in 2007, which tries to alert the public the moment scientists detect a large tremor. The Japanese system doesn’t rely on seismology alone. It also relies on a well-informed population. In other parts of the world, where populations may be more demographically diverse, getting out earthquake-preparedness information can be challenging.
For now, Tierney advised, people in vulnerable areas should stay vigilant and have an earthquake-preparedness plan, especially when it’s been a while since the last quake.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) and partner organizations in California are doing research to understand what benefits an earthquake early warning system might have in California.
Even though there is currently no way to predict earthquakes, seismologist Mike Blanpied of the USGS has grounds for optimism. According to Blanpied, “There is increased amounts of data, new theories and powerful computer programs and scientists are using those to explore ways that earthquakes might be predicted in the future. We can certainly hope that someday we’ll be in a world where an earthquake can be anticipated and predicted before it occurs.”
Our thanks to:
Kathleen Tierney
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO
If you want to know about whether earthquakes can be predicted why not look at the places they are doing the prediction research rather than asking people (the usgs and university rock hounds) who say they don’t know how?
http://www.electricquakes.org has a lot of information on possible prediction useful precursors.
Nobody is claiming that scientists (and others) are not trying to predict earthquakes. That goal has been the holy grail of earthquake scholarship for hundreds of years. But the fact is that earthquakes cannot be predicted, if by \”prediction\” we mean specifying a location and a reasonably narrow (i.e., not in hundreds of years) time window. Many scientific groups provide \”projections\” and \”earthquake probabilities\” for particular regions over time, but those are not the same as \”predictions\” as the term is generally understood.
If you recognise that dams cause worldwide earthquakes,you can zoom in and see that in the rainfall season rapid build up of dam waters cause them. During the dry season, water consumption rates cause them. Behind water consumption rates, there are industrial and agricultural rates and electrical load demands which draw water so rapidly as to cause order of magnitude higher water pressure changes to appear at centers of gravity of heavily dammed regions than the height of the Everest in a fraction of a second and every other second. That Hydro generators cause this so fiercely can be seen in the appropriate sum total of good old daily load curves for a peak load day(Mon thru Fri). The result has been major and great earthquakes occurring as frequently as the horrors created by suicide bombers! See the story unravelled in the website indicated. Haiti and Chile are only the most recent catastrophes even as I am predicting such horrors for this month from the 13th to the 19th(March 2010). One predicts because the past becomes the future in a business as usual way of life.