Why Are We So Bad at Predicting Earthquakes? (telegraph.co.uk) 174
In the wake of major earthquakes in both Japan and Ecuador, one British newspaper asks: Why are we so bad at predicting earthquakes? In 2015 seismologists told Vice, "The more we study them, the harder they look to predict, and "there's a shortage of instrumenation." But today the Telegraph newspaper concludes that we actually have two problems: first, "science is hopeless at predicting earthquakes and, second, we keep building cities on major fault-lines..." They cite a new book called Earth-Shattering Events which reports that nearly half the world's large cities are in earthquake-prone areas, adding, "we don't just build our cities on fault-lines, we also tend to rebuild them, in the same place, but no more robust, time and time again." In 1976 one quake in China killed more than 750,000 people, while a 2004 quake in Indonesia killed 170,000. "The Earth will move and there's not a thing we can do to stop it," the Telegraph concludes, arguing that we need to learn more from our past.
Because (Score:2, Insightful)
Because we haven't prosecuted enough scientists for failing to predict earthquakes. Italy is on the ball. Get with it, world!
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The scientists were prosecuted because they predicted there would be no earthquake, not that they didn't predict an earthquake. I hope you can see the difference.
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The scientists were wrongly prosecuted. They reported their assessment based on a review of the data available to them. They did not state whether or not there would be an earthquake.
Well, I remember a big discussion here on /. a few years ago about the subject where transcripts and such were drug out. I remember them doing a bit more than that. They essentially held a press conference outside of official channels to discredit a kook, and instead of sticking to the "nobody can predict earthquakes" line they started with, but by the end at least one person was telling the public "go home, have a glass of wine, don't worry about it" and then there was another earthquake. Now the guy was a
SImple answer... (Score:5, Interesting)
.
Why don't we have the appropriate modeling? Because we do not have enough information to create those models.
Why don't we have the information to create the models? Because we do not explore the earth enough.
Re:SImple answer... (Score:5, Insightful)
Simpler answer,
We don't know very much.
This applies to most things, not just earthquakes,
Medicine, (why do we need so much testing? because we are taking a stab in the dark and seeing if it works)
Weather, how many are forecasts inaccurate.
In fact any system that is even mildly complex we blunder our way through, even an area like programming, where we know exactly how the system works, and all inputs, we still need to test rigorously in to ensure that we haven't made to may mistakes.
Also earth quakes are probably a chaotic system so we probably cannot get close to even knowing enough inputs to predict them, no matter how much we explore. (It doesn't mean we shouldn't try)
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We can predict the next eclipse (the next several in fact) - and the solar system is chaotic. Chaotic systems are not wholly unpredictable. They have what's known as a prediction-horizon, a maximum period after which predictions become impossible as errors in measurement add up.
The more accurately you can measure - the further you can push the prediction-horizon. For the solar system the prediction horizon is about 2 million years. For weather it's about a week. For climate - about a million years (climate
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References, please.
I think you're referring to Lake Nyos in Cameroon (I was discussing this with a limnologist at a conference last week ; he did some of the sonic and seismic surveying on Lake Malawi). The degassing programme at Lake Ny
Re: SImple answer... (Score:2)
Well I'm no geologist and clearly your sources are more informed than the newspaper article I read on Kivu a few weeks back and opted to use as an example.
Re: SImple answer... (Score:2)
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Sorry, hang on. Kenya doesn't border either Lake Kivu or Nyos. What are you on about?
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You forgot one more obvious but important observation
Predicting the future is hard, and past does not equal future.
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Earthquakes?. It's not too hard to predict where some large earthquakes will occur. In the US, future large quakes on the New Madrid, San Andreas, and Cascadia fault systems are a near certainty. It's when that's the problem. Could be centuries ... or hours.
And, of course, serious quakes can occur on other faults -- probably including some fault zones that we aren't currently aware of.
It's sort of like predicting hurricanes in the Southeastern US. Are there going to be hurricanes? Always have been. O
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"serious quakes can occur on other faults -- probably including some fault zones that we aren't currently aware of."
This is exactly what happened in New Zealand. The fault that killed Christchurch was completely unknown before it popped and then unzipped on its way to the coast and out to sea over the next few months, despite the kiwis spending a lot of time and effort trying to map this kind of thing in their very shaky country.
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You might want to brush up on your fundamentals before launching in to discussions like this. I'm sure you think it's edgy and provocative, but all it does is show everyone you are really out of your depth in this discussion.
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"They should be able to predict when earthquakes will occur well, well in advance, like 100 years."
OK.
"There will be a very large earthquake centred in the middle of North America in the next 50-100 years - and much of the country is not prepared for it"
New Madrid is geologically as regular as clockwork, but in human terms that translates to plus or minus 100 years or more.
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Well, a hundred years or so after we have a technology that makes solid rock as transparent as air, to a resolution of a few centimetres, at 10 kilometres range.
Information is necessary to prediction.
However... (Score:2)
When you're speaking of 1000 years in the future stuff, there's pretty much zero downside to the actual researchers for being wrong, or for that matter found to be so completely clueless that they make a round of cheese look clever by comparison.
Re:SImple answer... (Score:5, Interesting)
Because we do not have appropriately accurate modeling of the parts of the earth which cause earthquakes occur.
Actually, it's because we're bad at predicting, period, end of sentence
Wonderful things like reinforcement bias and the availability heuristic meddle with our accuracy. There's a reason why earthquake insurance sells the best days after an earthquake, when statistically that's when there's the least risk. When something horrible happens, people suddenly remember, and Do Something, but as the years add up since the last event, we become lax.
That's the personal level. I recommend reading Risk by Dan Gardner to lean a bunch about this in general. From that book, he moved on with Philip Tetlock and wrote Future Babble and then Superforecasting, which more closely refine the general psychology covered in Risk down to mathematical models and expert opinions. Risk is a fascinating read useful to individuals to understand why grocery stores have sales with "limit 10 per customer", and why more extra Americans died driving the year after September 11th than died in the attacks themselves, and the other two get (much) more into "why are economists wrong so often" (Future Babble), and finally "why are some people so good at analyzing data and predicting things like complex geopolitical events and the like, and how can we learn to be like them" (Superforecasting).
I leave locating the books to the audience as you know what bookstores you prefer and the author and titles are very clear.
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That is only part of the story. More instrumentation may not help if you are measuring the wrong things. Secondly you are dealing with complex systems modeled by non-linear equations with no closed form solutions. Ever. There may be a plethora of potential solutions but they may represent local solutions as opposed to global solutions. Past a certain point Math can't help you and if Math can't help you neither will a computer model.
Weather models have gotten better at long range global trends and very short
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Another factor we don't know anything about is the forces driving the tectonics. Sure we know the concepts but nothing of the details of what I assume to be magma/whatever pushing India north. At what speed? What's the friction against the bottom
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One word : Parkfield. Nice idea, not a lot of useful data.
Fair p
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And continue your analysis ...
Why don't we have enough information? Because rock is opaque, to gamma radiation on thicknesses more than a half-metre or so. It is opaque to X-rays on similar scales. It is opaque to UV on a scale of centimetres, and for most minerals, to visible and IR on even shorter scales. The only tecnhniques which can penetrate more than a few metres into rock are magnetics, gravity and ac
Re:SImple answer to Honest Question (Score:2)
All of those plus more TBD.
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Re:SImple answer... (Score:4, Insightful)
Honest question: What would it take to make that happen? Money, time or technology?
It's not even know whether or not it is possible in principle to predict when a major earthquake will happen. If you look at a time series of magnitude measurements at a particular fault it looks like something coming out of a random number generator. It might be predictable, but it's not obvious that it is.
Some systems are fundamentally unpredictable because their long-term behaviour depends on arbitrarily small differences in the initial state of the system.
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Some systems are fundamentally unpredictable because their long-term behaviour depends on arbitrarily small differences in the initial state of the system.
Bingo. I'd liken it to looking at one of those toothpick/balsa bridges built by students, then trying to predict, down to the second, when the bridge is going to collapse.
There's just too many variables.
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Not really. If we had some guarantee, that would be sufficient grounds for red tagging any buildings built on alluvial fill that don't comply with current earthquake code until they can be brought up to code, which would probably save lives.
Of course, knowing California governments, they'd probably red-tag buildings
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Honest question: What would it take to make that happen? Money, time or technology?
Fusion and holographic storage.
Better science and more money (Score:2)
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What straw will break the camel's back (Score:5, Interesting)
We know where earthquakes will be - along fault lines. When will it happen? When the tension gets too high. It's like asking what pebble will start a landslide, what snowflake will start an avalance or what straw will break the camel's back. The problem isn't the lack of an answer, the problem is that we're expecting an exact result to a complex and chaotic process. Would you also like a map of where lighting is going to strike?
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The fact that we build some cities near fault lines is a completely different topic, however, one could speculate that with more people living and working near fault lines, there is more money being spent on quake research
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Can we measure them indirectly? - Honest question. I don't know if GP post is correct or not, it could be that when stress reaches a certain level an earthquake will occur. Obviously you'd never know down to the second, but could we ever know down to the day.. month... or year? How chaotic is it?
Maybe it'd be possible to deliberately set off an imminent quake, doing this could save a lot of lives as you could get everyone to safety 1st. I'd love to hear an experts o
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I think that only works in the movies. Trying to affect tectonic plates with a nuke is like trying to deflect an oil tanker by chucking tennis balls at it.
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Or like throwing that tennis ball at the lever that releases the ship from dry dock - a few megatons might just be enough to start something which is already close to happening.
Fracking causes earthquakes so you can't say it's not possible.
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Wait ... My money is on Samo!
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Can we measure them indirectly? - Honest question.
Well, I oversimplified because you not only need to measure the stresses but you need a continuous measurement, or at least a detailed enough sample, over a large volume of earth. I don't see any way we can get the indirect measurements that provide the accuracy needed, and they have not been able to do it yet. Its a monumental thing to pull off, but maybe someday methods will be developed that get us closer to a detailed model.
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A quick google shows that scientists are working on it and that it may be possible.
https://www.google.co.uk/searc... [google.co.uk]
1st hit:
Early Warning System For Earthquakes: Seismic 'Stress Meter' Warned Of Earthquake 10 Hours In Advance [sciencedaily.com]
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Yes you can measure it, indirectly, using ion analysis from p holes. http://www.seti.org/seti-insti... [seti.org]
Or you may watch the ionosphere.
https://www.technologyreview.c... [technologyreview.com]
I have a high altitude system and a low altitude system (10 ground stations) and both give me the Total Electron Content of the ionosphere to support a patent in the tomography of the ionosphere.
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Some interesting stuff there. But more data is certainly needed, the way people got ill in the lead up to an earthquake is fascinating, but again there could have been a separate cause.
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That said, those are pretty remote areas without buildings below
The liability alone would be mind boggling. "Boss, I triggered a 3.5, but a 7.0 happened....".
What if you could make the San Andreas fault frictionless? Probably good for SoCal, but Seattle might not
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Yeah, lol, the liability.
Person1: 'You destroyed my house'
Person2: 'meh, it was going to get destroyed anyway'
"What if you could make the San Andreas fault frictionless?"
Inject some lube? Fracking in reverse!
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Imagine that you decide to build a bedspring out of soda cans. Randomly, a can will collapse, causing the bed to shift. If you want to predict when it will happen, you have to know the thickness of every can, how much stress it can take before collapsing, and how
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Likely the only way we will 'predict' earthquakes is when we learn enough to cause them. Why would we do that -- to make several small ones instead of one big one.
Fracking-related (actually wastewater reinjection) quakes demonstrate it is feasible with current technology.
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No. Fracking earthquakes are shallow, not remotely deep enough to affect tectonic plate activity. And there's not enough data, yet, to say whether small earthquakes due to fracking reduce the likelihood of larger, naturally occurring earthquakes at all.
We have never drilled down remotely close enough to affect tectonic activities. The expense is fairly astronomical.
We already have a solution (Score:2)
We accidentally stumbled onto the exact same thing with earthquakes. When the oil companies started fracking, we discovered the extra lubrication could t
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The earthquakes from fracking (at least here) are not along the major fault lines so they aren't going to help and possibly will make it worse by transferring energy towards the major fault lines. Haphazardly and randomly crushing rock and adding lubricant is as stupid as walking through the mountains randomly shooting a shotgun during avalanche season.
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"Geothermal energy - the only "clean" energy source which could potentially have replaced base load power plants "
Bunkum.
Rocks are amazingly poor heat conductors. Geothermal energy plants start out with high production and then taper off to uneconomic with a few tiny exceptions such as Iceland, which has the advantage of being on top of a mantle plume that's constantly bringing new heat near the surface.
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-not always along fault lines
-interplate faults are still bloody huge.
-we don't always know where faults are
-that doesn't allow for internal stresses of non-faultline rock that can still give and cause a quake
Faults are discontinuities in the rock of a tectonic plate.
Interplate faults, ie plate boundaries, are obvious once we got the tectonic plates largely mapped. and they are huge, in length and width.
but that doesn't account for ancient faults or plate borders that we don't know about (such the idea that
With WX, where it's hard to see all the heat... (Score:2)
here it's hard to see all the stored energy. Neither image sufficiently well on the large scale to satisfy the second-guessers, and imaging on the smallest scale is diminishing investment. Granted temp and precip forecasts have a pretty tight 90% confidence interval for 24 hours, and earthquakes aren't predicted like that, but you're chasing something that cannot be "seen" without fairly ornate technology.
Also, maybe stop poking holes in the ground and greasing the giant moveable rocks.
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Also, maybe stop poking holes in the ground and greasing the giant moveable rocks.
Seems to me that there wouldn't be a lot of oil and natural gas collecting where the rocks are moveable. Movement fractures rock and probably would give that stuff an exit to the surface.
That's not really true (Score:5, Insightful)
"we don't just build our cities on fault-lines, we also tend to rebuild them, in the same place, but no more robust, time and time again."
I can't speak for everywhere, but in California, the construction standards are much higher after the 1989 earthquake.
Boston, however, [boston.com] is in serious danger because of so many tall buildings built of brick (and other reasons).
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Bad at hurricanes and tornadoes too (Score:2)
Don't want to risk jail for getting it wrong (Score:2)
Don't want to risk jail for getting it wrong
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new... [dailymail.co.uk]
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They were charged because they predicted there would be no earthquake, something they had no worldly way of knowing. They got it wrong, and people were placed in danger because of it. Not predicting something and predicting something will not happen are two different things, which you entirely failed to mention.
Interesting research on the sun's influence... (Score:2)
http://www.suspicious0bservers... [suspicious0bservers.org]
Check 'em out if you're not familiar with their work.
We can predict earthquakes ... (Score:5, Insightful)
we know the sort of geology that is found in earthquake areas, so we can predict where they will happen; by measuring strain, etc, we can get an idea of when they will happen and what sort of magnitude. The trouble is that we (== common people, non scientists) expect answers that fit in with my everyday rulers and clocks (ie a few miles and days), but geological events are measured differently: hundreds of miles and decades/centuries; so the margins of error are too great for what we want.
If I place a vase of roses outside on a summer's day I can expect the flowers to be visited by bees, but I cannot predict which flower will be visited first or the minute when the first bee will come.
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"[W]e keep building cities on major fault-lines"? (Score:3)
We "keep doing" this? Are there some newly-built cities we've intentionally located on major faults?
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Some fairly recent constructions in Japan have turned out to be on previously unknown fault lines. Some nuclear plants will probably never re-start because since the 2011 disaster they have been re-surveyed with better equipment than was available in the 80s and found to have faults under them.
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I'm pretty sure San Fransisco was founded - and boomed, due to the Gold Rush - well before people knew plate tectonics existed.
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Also, where else can we build and live? Each area has its own nature issues. :(
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The 1992 Roermond earthquake was a magnitude 5.3. At least in Earthquake zones, building codes can be more strict so damage is minimal.
Berlin is far north and has major storms. Snow and ice kill people every year, and things like respiratory infections, hypothermia, etc., kill many more.
There have been numerous
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For solidarity! (Score:2)
i live in area that was devastated half a decade ago and i can tell you when you're world is torn to shreds, you need hope and you need to tell tragedy where to shove it. This is why we WILL rebuild. [fjcdn.com] When it's all over, you can proudly declare that you cannot be defeated. [youtube.com] #ClickThemLinks
Re:For solidarity! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Suppose we could... (Score:5, Interesting)
That brings up an interesting question--what do we do about it?
"We've determined that on May 17, 2015, there will be a 6.0-level earthquake in San Francisco. We believe the accuracy of this prediction to be 90%."
Great! We've got a month's warning. It's going to be major. We're pretty sure it's going to happen--but there's a possibility that it won't.
Now what? Evacuate 800,000 people? Start building shelters that can withstand the earthquake? Do you tell people so that they can prepare?
Re:Suppose we could... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Suppose we could... (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely, the city would be evacuated. That's much higher prediction accuracy than we can get with hurricanes, yet cities are evacuated for those, sometimes even several times per year.
Of course, the minority, whor are living in structures engineered to withstand very high earthquake loads would remain behind. But at least they'd have plenty of warning to strap down appliances before-hand, and stay away from dangerous spots on that day.
Not to mention there would be a rush on home-improvement stores and contractors, as everyone rushes to reinforce their shoddy old buildings.
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1) Have emergency services ready for an influx of casualties.
2) Have the national guard on standby just in case.
3) Shutdown all the nuclear reactors.
4) Make sure any dams are not operating near capacity.
5) Prevent workers from working on high rise construction projects.
6) Prevent workers from working with hazards materials for that day.
7) Shutdown oil refineries and other major fire hazards.
8) Shutdown any amusement park
Structured Criticality (Score:5, Informative)
we keep building cities on major fault-lines (Score:2)
Leave earthquakes, we can't say when the Cat died. (Score:2)
Doo doo occurs (Score:2)
C'mon. There is no safe place on Earth. Oooo, don't build in the forest because it might burn. Oooo, don't build near the water because it might flood. Oooo, don't build in middle America because tornadoes.
Is it a problem? (Score:2)
The author seems to be making the assumption that we shouldn't build cities in places where earthquakes can occur. Should we also not build them in places that are at risk for hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, volcanoes, wildfires, or any other sort of natural disaster? If so, we've just ruled out a large fraction of land on earth, including most coastlines and just about the entire Pacific rim.
There are risks everywhere. They're different in different places, but nowhere is completely safe. You have to
Quake resistant structures most important (Score:2)
Aware? (Score:2)
What's that? (Score:2)
instrumenation?
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Re:predicting earthquakes is useless (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, what are you going to do, have everyone move houses and buildings to other locations? What a waste of time.
Given a minute or so of warning, you can:
1. Stop trains, so they don't come off the track.
2. Stop additional cars from entering tunnels.
3. Pretension dampers in tall structures
4. Sound an alarm to warn people in warehouses and stores to move away from shelves.
5. Pull up automatic safely webbing to prevent pallets from falling off racks.
6. Stop and lower cargo on forklifts.
7. Start powering down heavy machinery
8. Stop people from entering elevators
9. Open fire station doors, so they don't jam closed.
10. Shutdown the flames in furnaces and water heaters
11. Start reducing gas pressure in pipelines.
12. Warn people on beaches to start moving to higher ground.
13. Start backup diesels for emergency services.
14. Retract the control rods from nuclear reactors.
Since seismic waves travel about 5 km / sec, you can give useful warning to people further away just by quick detection. Of course, prediction would be better.
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Unless everyone decides to go to the nice places and take their shit.
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Earthquakes are man-made disasters, not natural ones. The vast majority of deaths are caused by collapsing buildings.
We know to, and how to, make the buildings stronger.
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No, actually, we know to make the building weaker in critical ways.
Strong buildings typically fall down. Flexible ones do not.
Re:The hubris of man (Score:4, Interesting)
I work in a 12 story
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Here we go again. Those scientists were charged for predicting that there would not be an earthquake, not for not predicting an earthquake. There is a difference.
Not true (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a risk market for earthquakes. Actuaries would love to have better predictability for earthquakes to better calculate the risk so that insurance products can be priced more accurately. If someone is going to fund earthquake research, real property insurers are your best bet.
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Predicting the long-term risk if quakes is relatively straightforward.
It's predicting the one that happens next week which is hard. Even if we know roughly when and where the next one might occur (the anatolian fault being one example where it's predictable), that "when" has enough of a margin of error that we can't preemptievly evacuate an area. People get pissed off and move back after a few days, let alone a few years.
As for why cities get built on faults: Every major historical habitation is built close