May 23, 2002

9:43 AM

CA Earthquake forecast...Apparently, the earthquake that Matt felt recently had been forecast by a group of scientists with a new predictive modelling method. That particular earthquake was just on the edge of their confidence interval, but four other recent earthquakes fell well within the predicted boundaries.
posted by SpecialK (8 comments total)

1. "Earthquake predication"?
2. What is up with the caption on that graphic?
3. Why isn't this study on the Web? Boo.
posted by jjg at 10:01 AM on May 23, 2002

Ok. who's going to call Annette?
posted by vacapinta at 10:03 AM on May 23, 2002

Or, as Dick Cheney might say, another earthquake in California is "inevitable".
posted by briank at 10:15 AM on May 23, 2002

Did anyone else besides Matt feel it?
posted by jeremias at 11:10 AM on May 23, 2002

Har har har.

Anyway. *drags thread somewhere back near topic*
Wonder what this might do to land values in CA, or earthquake insurance, if your house is right near a place where an earthquake is predicted to happen?

I forwarded this to my dad, who's just bought a house in CA and will be interested in any data like this. I expect that he'll call and find out more about the LA basin.
posted by SpecialK at 11:31 AM on May 23, 2002

Clearly, these scientists are just trying to spread fear to keep the populace in line.

jjg: Oh, but it is: Self-organization in leaky threshold systems: The influence of near-mean field dynamics and its implications for earthquakes, neurobiology, and forecasting.

You can read a couple of their other papers online, too. Apparently they're more in the realm of stochastic prediction than geology.
posted by dhartung at 1:18 PM on May 23, 2002

This figure from the paper dhartung linked shades in areas where they predict earthquakes to occur in the next 10 years in California. They are basically the same places that have had major quakes over the past 10 years, and thankfully not in heavily populated areas.
posted by euphorb at 1:45 PM on May 23, 2002

Hmn... thanks for linking the actual article! I wish I'd been able to find it ahead of time, I wouldn't have posted this. It's just statistical inference, not 'hard science'. Meterology for geology?

The scary thing was that I recognized some of the equations they used as advanced forms of stuff I used in Stats class. Gaaa, frightening.
posted by SpecialK at 9:12 PM on May 23, 2002