Earthquake Prediction Tools

[AZBuck]

The Yucaipa quake - that's the one.

Amazing!

AZBuck

[Mark Sedenquist]

AZBuck,

It does seem like there was a pretty good cluster this week -- on a historical scale, probably not all that significant -- but still these new tools make it an interesting process to watch (from the relative safety of the web).

Mark

[PNW Judy]

Does anyone know if it predicted the earthquake the other night, just north of San Francisco out in the ocean, that resulted in a tsunami warning up the entire US coast?

I certainly never thought of checking this site out in the midst of putting a few extra clothes and food items in my car. Getting a bit more water. And putting the baby albums and some important papers in my car (flood insurance, etc....yeah, I know this should all be in a safe-deposit box), etc. Remember my car is already pretty well-stocked so this is all I felt I needed to gather. Anyway....

I didn't leave my home but I did watch closely the news reports to see if there was any flooding in Oregon. I just wanted to be ready just in case.

Well, if it was predicted, let me know, OK?

[AZBuck]

Judy - as I noted in a previous post, this tool does not predict individual earthquakes, but only gives general probabilities over regions. The area just off the coast north of San Francisco shows as only having a moderately low probability of a quake in the latest map. Science simply does not have the capability at present to accurately predict quakes to the day, year or even decade.

AZBuck

[Mark Sedenquist]

Does anyone know if it predicted the earthquake the other night, just north of San Francisco out in the ocean, that resulted in a tsunami warning up the entire US coast?

The site of the tremblor was a long ways north -- near Mendocino.

Well, if it was predicted, let me know, OK?

Like AZBuck mentioned, this EQ tool really isn't able to predict anything except in a very general sort of way. What makes this tool interesting is that it allows us geophysical duffers to do some "Monday Morning Quarterbacking" about what happened. But our frame of reference is pretty small to be able to predict the unknowable.

Mark

[PNW Judy]

Thanks, guys. I understand that we're not to the point of predicting. Poor choice of words. I meant probabilities and all that but it was just simpler to say the word predict. Sorry. I just thought some of you might have been watching that. I'm not interested enough in this type of scientific stuff to check it out enough to know one way or the other.