Failure™ Magazine

Fault-y Predictions

Scientists still a long way from being able to predict when earthquakes will strike.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under Science & Technology

Leogane, Haiti, at the epicenter of the January 12 earthquake.

After a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti on January 12, a lot of people probably wondered, “Why didn’t scientists see it coming?” Well, they did—at least insofar as recognizing that the Enriquilla-Plantain Garden fault was capable of producing a 7.2-magnitude quake. But despite rapid advances in earthquake science, researchers aren’t close to being able to predict when big earthquakes will strike. In “Predicting the Unpredictable: The Tumultuous Science of Earthquake Prediction” (Princeton University Press), Pasadena-based seismologist Susan Hough explains why the ability to predict earthquakes remains elusive—and figures to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Failure interviewed Hough just prior to the Port-au-Prince earthquake, and followed up via email with a handful of Haiti-specific questions.

What kind of advances have we seen in recent years in terms of earthquake science?
Since the early 1990s we’ve gotten a much better handle on how earthquakes influence other earthquakes. Now it’s clear that when a big earthquake happens, the waves travel out and they trigger other earthquakes. There is communication between earthquakes that is more interesting and varied than we realized.

What’s the difference between earthquake prediction and earthquake forecast?
A prediction has to be meaningfully narrow in terms of magnitude, location and time; there’s going to be a magnitude 7 in San Francisco on Tuesday at 4 p.m., for instance. You can get progressively more fuzzy and say, “There’s going to be an earthquake between magnitude 6 and 7 within 100 km of San Francisco in the next 3 months.” That’s still a prediction, because it’s a usefully narrow window. Then things can get fuzzier and fuzzier. I can say, “There’s going to be a magnitude 5 quake in California sometime next year.” The trick is to make a prediction where you’re saying something more than what we know about earthquake rates, because some statements you can make with fair certainty just because we know how frequently earthquakes occur.

Page 1 of 6 pages 1 2 3 > Last »