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When Will We Predict Earthquakes?

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A seismologist studies fractures in a concrete wall following the M6.6 1971 Sylmar earthquake. Creative commons.

In Tornado Alley where I’m from, storm warnings as we know them today didn’t exist until 1974. Proper warnings became possible once radar got sophisticated enough to detect cloud rotation, but the day came. Scientists could collect data already present in the atmosphere to accurately forecast the weather. Countless lives have been saved in the decades since. 

Humanity’s extraordinary feats in the last hundred years include nuclear power, spaceflight, the internet, Meryl Streep. As technology reduces our inconveniences to the point of causing them, it seems we need only wait out the Bigger Problems. For instance, once drastic measures free Earth’s future from the oil industry’s chokehold, we’ll wise up and abandon fossil fuels. Today, especially here along the planet’s tectonic seams, one innovation remains glaringly absent. 

For all our accomplishments, we still haven’t figured out how to predict earthquakes. Why? Will we ever crack the seismic Da Vinci code? What’s standing in the way of predicting the next Big One? 

Can we start by spotting the foreshocks?

The idea has some merit. In June 1988, a M5.3 occurred on a section of the San Andreas Fault in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Seismologists were keeping their eyes on that segment since its designation as a “seismic gap,” making any activity there significant. Like a gift from the gods, a M5.4 struck the same area in August 1989, spurring scientists to place instrumentation in the field, just in case. They fortuitously collected excellent data on the M6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake just three months later. 

It’s the closest we got to something resembling prediction. The Loma Prieta foreshocks occurred on a suspiciously quiet, should’ve-been-shaky leg of the San Andreas. “At any point on the fault, it’s usually about 100–150 years between earthquakes,” says Dr. Jones. “But that doesn’t mean ‘every 150 years, we get an earthquake.’ It means every year has about a 1% chance of having an earthquake.” 1989 didn’t herald prediction. Loma Prieta was an educated guess. 

The setting and circumstances of a minor quake may inform the stresses at work belowground. However, the quake itself exhibits no features that distinguish it from your average tremor. No such indicators lie in the crust beneath our feet. “At this point, we have not been able to find anything different about how a magnitude 1 begins and how a magnitude 7 begins. They seem to begin in the same way.” (Jones) 

It happens in the moment—hence the moment magnitude scale, the international standard for seismic rating based on the Richter scale. 

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Will we ever learn to predict earthquakes? 

After forty years searching for answers, Dr. Jones realized she was on a wild goose chase. That was not a conclusion she accepted lightly, and not without exhausting every lead. Seismologists have investigated the roles of geomagnetism, ultra low-frequency radiowaves, astronomy, water, electricity, the moon, even psychic connectivity. All led to the same disappointing answer.

“If somebody tells you they know an earthquake is coming, they aren’t using science to do it.”

Sorry, Dutchsinse. Experts are calling your bluff. Earthquakes really are fundamentally random.

As for the future of prediction, the outlook isn’t good.

“For prediction to ever be possible,” says Dr. Jones, “there has to be information in the Earth about how big an earthquake will be before it begins. And the data is looking like the magnitude is determined dynamically during the event. Which means the Earth does not have that information before it begins.”

An earthquake is a guest. Prepare for its arrival. It’s the same logic as having (access to) a basement if you live in Kansas. That’s life in Tornado Alley. Earthquakes are part of life in California. Prediction is not the solution, says Dr. Jones—preparedness is. Today’s efforts could be tomorrow’s good fortune. 

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Jake Warren

Jake Warren

Gay nonfiction writer and pragmatic editor belonging to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. Service industry veteran, incurable night owl, aspiring professor.