Earthquake Prediction - Is Earthquake Prediction Impossible?

Is Earthquake Prediction Impossible?

As the preceding examples show, the record of earthquake prediction has been disappointing. Even where earthquakes have unambiguously occurred within the parameters of a prediction, statistical analysis has generally shown these to be no better than lucky guesses. The optimism of the 1970s that routine prediction of earthquakes would be "soon", perhaps within ten years, was coming up disappointingly short by the 1990s, and many scientists began wondering why. By 1997 it was being positively stated that earthquakes can not be predicted, which led to a notable debate in 1999 on whether prediction of individual earthquakes is a realistic scientific goal.. For many the question is whether the prediction of individual earthquakes is merely hard, or intrinsically impossible.

Has earthquake prediction failed only because it is "fiendishly difficult" and still beyond the current competency of science? Despite the confident announcement four decades ago that seismology was "on the verge" of making reliable predictions, there may yet be an underestimation of the difficulties. As early as 1978 it was reported that earthquake rupture might be complicated by "heterogeneous distribution of mechanical properties along the fault", and in 1986 that geometrical irregularities in the fault surface "appear to exert major controls on the starting and stopping of ruptures". Another study attributed significant differences in fault behavior to the maturity of the fault. These kinds of complexities are not reflected in current prediction methods.

Seismology may even yet lack an adequate grasp of its most central concept, elastic rebound theory. A simulation that explored assumptions regarding the distribution of slip found results "not in agreement with the classical view of the elastic rebound theory". (This was attributed to details of fault heterogeneity not accounted for in the theory.)

Or is earthquake prediction intrinsically impossible? It has been argued that the Earth is in a state of self-organized criticality "where any small earthquake has some probability of cascading into a large event". It has also been argued on decision-theoretic grounds that "prediction of major earthquakes is, in any practical sense, impossible."

That earthquake prediction might be intrinsically impossible has been strongly disputed But the best disproof of impossibility — effective earthquake prediction — has yet to be demonstrated.

"... predicting earthquakes is challenging and maybe possible in the future ..."