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NASA Quakesim Predicts 15 Out of 16 CA Quakes 163

Posted by samzenpus 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.""
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NASA Quakesim Predicts 15 Out of 16 CA Quakes More

NASA Quakesim Predicts 15 Out of 16 CA Quakes

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  • From how far out? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Omkar ( 618823 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @08:57PM (#10455899) Homepage Journal
    I think it's a fair to ask how far in advance the quakes were predicted.
    • 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.

      • Re:Sorry, Clicked submit too early: (Score:5, Interesting)

        by fireduck ( 197000 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:04PM (#10455954)
        fact is, though, this is a big step in the right direction. To successfully predict a quake, you need location, magnitude and time. They've got location down and time vaguely constrained (article doesn't state time effect, other than a quake in this location within 10 years) and a lower limit on magnitude (at least 5). That's better than nothing. and certainly something to use as a starting point for future modelling efforts.
        • It's that time effect that's really got me worried. I'll admit, it's a step in the right direction, but 10 years seems a little fruity. It's fairly easy to point to a spot on a map of California and shout "There will be a quake here in ten years or less!" In fact, I think I can do this with a few different disasters...

          There will be an Earthquake in Japan sometime in the next ten years!

          There will be another Hurricane in Florida sometime in the next ten years!

          There will be a volcano in Hawaii in the nex
        • True, but this cautious quote from the article makes it sound as though they based their prediction purely on previous history, not on any sort of geographical of physics information:
          "We're elated our computer modeling technique has revealed a relationship between past and future earthquake locations"
          This was a sensationalized article title, IMHO.
        • 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.
          • Assume that they get to where such predictions are reliable enough that it's worth adjusting building codes. That applies to new construction; retrofitting an existing house will never be cost-effective. But the insurance companies will drop coverage for earthquake damage in those areas almost immediately, regardless of the code, or set the rates so high as to price most people out of the market. Florida had the same problem with hurricane damage and homeowners insurance; they got the insurance companies to
    • It doesn't say. Perhaps someone who lives in the area has more information?

      • Re:From how far out? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by lukewarmfusion ( 726141 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:05PM (#10455959) Homepage Journal
        It does say...

        "Published in 2002, the Rundle-Tiampo Forecast has accurately predicted the locations of 15 of California's 16 largest earthquakes this decade, including last week's tremors."

        "Eleven of the 15 quakes occurred after the paper was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Feb. 2002."
        • To clarify, how many years' worth of data are needed to predict a quake? Remember, four were predicted before publication. I'm asking whether the model can predict a quake while looking at data two years (or whatever) older.
        • The question is, if this were to be used as an early warning system, how much "early warning" is possible, while still getting reliable results? The paper doesn't address that.

    • Re:From how far out? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by angle_slam ( 623817 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:09PM (#10455992)
      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.

      • A few years ago we had one in Vancouver. I was sitting at my desk and my monitors started to wobble. I thought I was losing my mind! Then, the building started to sway. of course, we went to the windows to watch the other buildings sway. What a bunch of smart guys we were :)
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • But... (Score:2, Insightful)

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

    Still cool though.

  • Hastalavista California... (Score:4, Funny)

    by chrispyman ( 710460 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @08:59PM (#10455910)
    So, have they predicted when California is going to fall into the ocean?

  • But... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Spad ( 470073 ) <slashdot.spad@co@uk> on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @08:59PM (#10455912) Homepage
    How many did it predict that never happened?
    • How close does the epicenter of the earthquake have to be to the predicted location in order for it to be considered a prediction? 5 mile? 50 miles? 100 miles?
      • I don't think that so much matters right now. If we can pick a fault line and tell it's going to quake, we're doing well. Better than anything previous, as far as I know.

        Anyone notice that volcano in Mexico went off when Helens was starting to scare people? That's on the west coast as well. It could be coincidence, as I haven't heard anyone try to make a connection. Same fault line though.

  • Reminds me of early Tornado forecasting (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @08:59PM (#10455915)
    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.
    • ...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 ... w
    • No, it is impossible to predict tornados. It IS possible to DETECT tornados as quickly as they form.

  • Only 5? Pity... (Score:5, Funny)

    by lukestuts ( 731515 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @08:59PM (#10455919) Journal
    That means it won't be able to predict Quake IV :(
    • By the time Quake 5 or 6 comes along, it'll just be actually running around with a real machine gun. When you die, they bring you back to life.
    • You don't need that sheisty program just to predict Quake IV.

      Quake I : 1996/06/22
      Quake II : 1997/12/02
      Quake III: 1999/12/21

      That's a year and a half between 1 and 2. Two years between 2 and 3. So if my math holds out, it will be two and a half years before Quake IV is released.

      That should hold you over for a while.

    • Re:Only 5? Pity... (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I don't know what weapons Quake 4 will be fought with, but Quake 5 will be fought with sticks and stones.

  • Quakesim... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dieppe ( 668614 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:00PM (#10455922) Homepage
    Do they have a multiplayer version of this? Will it run on Linux? ;)
    • Do they have a multiplayer version of this? Will it run on Linux?

      You're thinking of SimQuake [google.com], the amazing new natural disaster simulator from the makers of SimCity! Build your own planet's tectonic plates, set them adrift on the sea of magma in the mantle, and watch them separate, collide, and reform over billions of years! Will the resultant undersea trenches, earthquakes and mountain ranges be the harbingers of new forms of life on your world, or the ultimate end of it? Only YOU can decide!

      Also availab
  • 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
    • Humans have made incredible things, but we are still unable to truly look into the center of the earth. There are probably flows so deep that affect the surface, that we can't even make guesses about them.

  • Eh? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CheesyPeteza ( 814646 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:05PM (#10455961)
    What are you quoting?
    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.""
    But when I look at the site it says:
    the Rundle-Tiampo Forecast has accurately predicted the
    locations of 15 of California's 16 largest earthquakes this decade, including last week's tremors.
    Thats a pretty big difference. :o

  • Discussion of this on NPR (Score:5, Informative)

    by BrewerDude ( 716509 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:05PM (#10455963)
    The San Francisco NPR station, KQED, had an interesting discussion on this yesterday on their Forum program.

    Check out the archived version here [kqed.org]

    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:

    • Dr. Donald Turcotte, professor of geology at UC Davis
    • Dr. Manuel Nathenson, scientist in charge of the Volcano Hazards Team at US Geological Survey in Menlo Park
    • Dr. Roland Burgmann, associate professor at Berkeley Seismological Lab at UC Berkeley Dr. Susan Hough, seismologist at US Geological Survey in Pasadena and author of "Earth Shaking Science: What We Know and Don't Know"
  • I think they're triggering them. This calls for a tinfoil beanie the size of California.
    • Nahh, they need the Shuttle back in operation to resume causing the quakes.

      This study is great for most of us. It's reasonably obvious that if this application can effectively predict 15 out of 16 earthquakes, that the 16th the software was not able to predict is highly likely to be an artifact of someone's testing their earthquake generator.

      The reasonable expectation is that the study that produced this report is about to be de-funded, and the methods used will be declared a national security concern. Th
    • It sounds like tinfoil territory, but human activity actually can trigger [scec.org] earthquakes. Apparently, messing with groundwater is a bad idea..
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • It's easy to "predict" something that you cause yourself.

    I predit that I will put my tinfoil hat on! /me puts on tinfoil hat.

    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.
    • a lot of soon-to-be-coastal property along the California-Nevada border.

      Bleah. If you thought the reports of syringes and needles washing ashore were bad, wait until you see what California was really made of as it washes on shore...

      -Adam
      1. I predit that I will put my tinfoil hat on! /me puts on tinfoil hat.

      You're lying. We know that since you do not own a tinfoil hat, but instead own a lead one. You put the lead hat on this morning, in your faraday cage, 100 meters below the ground in solid granite.

      Your dog, an agent of our shadow organization, will give you further instructions on what to post on the Internet and where it should appear.

      That is all. Hmmmmmmmmm.....

  • what about false positives? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by discontinuity ( 792010 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:10PM (#10455996)

    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.

    • Re:what about false positives? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by speleo ( 61031 ) * on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @10:01PM (#10456279) Homepage
      I fail to see why folks get so into this quake prediction stuff.

      Heck, we can accurately predict at least a day out when and where a hurricane will hit, yet we still have people too stupid to get out of the way. An earthquake prediction won't even be that certain -- it's not like we're going to evacuate L.A. for the week a quake is predicted.

      As far as long range planning -- that's easy. California has earthquakes, all the time. Don't build things that will fall down when the ground moves.

      • As far as long range planning -- that's easy. California has earthquakes, all the time. Don't build things that will fall down when the ground moves.

        Sure, but not all places in CA are equally as likely to be hit by a quake (or equally likely to be hit with a quake of a particular magnitude, or whatever). Rather than overdesign every building for the worst possible quake in CA, we should design buildings with precautions that reflect the distribution of likely quakes in that particular locale.

        Another t

  • 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?

  • Misleading Title (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MalleusEBHC ( 597600 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:14PM (#10456026)
    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.

    • Re:Misleading Title (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mblase ( 200735 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:28PM (#10456101)
      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).
    • 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.
      • However, if you are on a city zoning board and need to approve new developments, or are looking over historical rennovations, you can use this information to simply state they the structures must be able to withstand an Earthquake of a certain magnatude because it is predicted to happen in the near future.

        Where I'm living right now (Utah), we have some earthquakes, but the are very infrequent, but of very high magnitude when they do happen. There is a reason this state is full of mountains, and geological
    • So lets make sure I understand this correctly. They correctly identified places that might have a 5+ magnitude quake over a ten period.

      Gee, lets get a map of the fault lines out there. I think there will be several 5+ quakes here, here, over there, and here over the next 5 years.

      Kind of like pointing at Mount St. Helens and saying there is going to be an eruption there in the next 5 years. Opps, that ones already come true.

      Now if they provide a date and time for each quake and hit it within a we
    • This is a very important step forward, though not for the "evacuation" purposes that people have been talking about. Previously earthquake "prediction" has been on the level of "a major earthquake is likely to happen somewhere along the fault in the next X years".

      If you can go from that to saying "A serious earthquake will most likely happen in these _specific_ places in the next X years" then you can plan development to avoid the key hotspots, and thus reduce the damage when one does strike.

      It is also, o
  • 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.

  • Poor NASA (Score:3, Funny)

    by jburroug ( 45317 ) <slashdot AT acerbic DOT org> on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:20PM (#10456053) Homepage Journal
    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!

  • Sounds Great But... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LFS.Morpheus ( 596173 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:21PM (#10456056) Homepage
    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?
    • NASA does a lot of stuff with geodetics. laser ranging of satellites and the Moon, mapping planetary gravity and electromagnetic fields, upper atmosphere research, remote sensing, movement of the Earth's crust, etc. It's all planetary science, with the Earth as its subject.

      It's not all rocket-ships and astronauts.

    • Tin foil hats and conspiracy theories asside, NASA is technically a govornment research facility, doing research in a wide variety of fields, not just Air and Space.

      I have not seen a copy lately, but one of the publications that NASA has generated in the past was a report on all the research projects they have been involved in, and the interim and final results of most if not all of those projects. The end result of this publication is the free availability of those research results to any company interest
    • Why is this funded by NASA?

      NASA's mission statement reads:

      To understand and protect our home planet
      To explore the universe, and search for life
      To inspire the next generation of explorers, as only NASA can.

      You might think that last line is a little cheezy, but no more so than your average mission statement, I guess. Anyway, earthquake research clearly falls under the "understand and protect our home planet" part of NASA's mission. (Disclaimer: I work for JPL, on almost entirely Earth science projects.

  • How to predict all earthquakes (Score:5, Funny)

    by product byproduct ( 628318 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:36PM (#10456145)
    #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);
    }

  • Short on specifics (Score:5, Interesting)

    by toxic666 ( 529648 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:36PM (#10456148)
    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.
    • 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.

      I got to agree with Inthewire [slashdot.org]. Nature wins no matter where you put it. The point is to accomodate the problems at the location. Building on an earthquake zone is ok as long as you engineer for the quakes you're likely to receive or don't mind the body you're going to ge

  • But (Score:3, Funny)

    by Stalke ( 20083 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @09:45PM (#10456187)
    Murphy's law predicts that the one that will sink california is the 1 in 16 they miss.
    • No Murphy's law would be of two quakes the important one will be missed Finangles Law predicts that the one that sinks CA will be missed http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/M/Murphys-Law.htm l
    • Could you really consider it "going wrong" fir California to sink into the sea, without the Californians knowing about it in advance?

      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

  • Panic prevention? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 )
    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.
    • 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 pip
  • 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!!!

  • This is how it should be done (Score:4, Interesting)

    by l0ungeb0y ( 442022 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @10:03PM (#10456285) Homepage Journal
    Mind you I didn't read the article.
    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. ...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.

  • Fast earthquake alert systems (Score:3, Informative)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Wednesday October 06, 2004 @10:07PM (#10456306)
    Some people are working on an earthquake alert system [llnl.gov] 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.
    • Regarding the earthquake alert system:

      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.

      Screw the computer! With a few seconds notice, get under your desk or into a door frame. Priority one is shelter and getting away from breaking glass. Not broken yet? Just wait.

      Either the earthquake will be too small and your hard drives could care less, or it will be too big, and you won't be caring about your ha
  • This guy predicted [spacedaily.com] 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.

  • Sceptical of this method. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WhiteBandit ( 185659 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @01:14AM (#10457226) Homepage
    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.

    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 [pnas.org].

    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/2004/10/04100 5071107.htm [sciencedaily.com]
    John Rundle's Paper [pnas.org]
    • 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
      • 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 f

        • In case you'd like to really read K-B's paper of his methods, you can find it here [pnas.org]. 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."

          Yes, I read that paper. It's pseudoscience dressed up as science. It is the classic fallacy of data analysis, let me expl

    • (predicted Japan and San Simeon, failed prediction in Southern California)

      Funny thing is, his prediction expired about a month before SoCal had a magnitude 5 quake.

      As I've said before, his predictions were so vague, that it was even money. Quakes are frequent enough that you can just pick a large area, and it's a pretty good bet there will be a major quake in the next 12 months.

  • "weak" quake predictions vs "strong" predictions (Score:3, Informative)

    by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Thursday October 07, 2004 @09:24AM (#10458688)
    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.

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