Is It Possible to Predict Earthquakes?

Pedro_P

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People overlook downtown San Francisco as fires roar across the city after the 1906 earthquake. This quake was likely a magnitude 7.9 and ruptured 296 miles (476 kilometers) along the San Andreas fault.
Credit: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty

▼ Northern California's Hayward Fault is often called the most dangerous fault in America: It's the country's most urbanized fault, meaning an earthquake there has the potential to cause significant destruction, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.Geologists say earthquakes happen there about every 160 years, and the last big quake on the fault happened 150 years ago, in 1868.Meaning we're due.
But are we, really? How accurately can researchers predict when an earthquake is expected to strike?
The answer is less straightforward than many people might think. Forecasting an earthquake's approximate date assumes earthquakes follow some kind of pattern — that faults release pressure in a predictable way. But the more scientists look at faults, the less this seems to be true. In fact, most experts now say it's impossible to guess where the next "big one" will occur.
"[In] some places, the Earth might be well enough organized that we get this more or less regular behavior, and in other parts, it's completely random," said William Ellsworth, a geophysicist at Stanford University who has spent decades looking for patterns in faultsthat might help engineers prepare for the big one. "It gets messy once you move away from these simple, well-behaved parts of the fault."  (▪ ▪ ▪)

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soothsayer

prediction near impossible. warning signs possible. safeguards lie in several ways with human hands- location oh buildings, adherence to coastline rules. such events seldom repeat themselves and not with the same intensity

Pedro_P

soothsayer 16-5-2018 01:01 AM
prediction near impossible. warning signs possible. safeguards lie in several ways with human hands- ...

The only certainty that I have about earthquakes is that, the farther away we are from the last earthquake, the closer we will be to the next one.

Arkitekt

Warning signs can be interpreted with historical record to predict to some accuracy the "Where" and "Strength/Magnitude". But the "When" cannot be predicted as it is dependent on a number of factors. Not with the present technology. For example, scientists and geologists have been predicting a major earthquake in North India; probably due to pressure building up in the himalayas due to the indian subcontinental plate pushing into the asian continental plate; but the time of earthquake is something no one can put a finger on.
My two bits.

soothsayer

absolutely-Mr Pedro you are right-no way to predict-once subject to earthquake, sure one would recur how fast one does not know. But only consider demographic shifts are also contributing in some way to these natural phenomena- when earthquakes hit some spot these days- the intensity is horrifying- not to speak of high rise buildings- Kedarnath an excellent example of landslide cum earthquakes

Pedro_P

@Arkitekt
@soothsayer
¦
There are early warning systems that only warn about the almost immediate occurrence of an earthquake, however, in fact, the exact time and date of that occurrence can not be predicted.
On the other hand, certainly, earthquakes are unpredictable, but statistically their greater or lesser occurrence can be determined, depending on variables such as geological faults, volcanoes, shock or friction of tectonic plates.
Finally, earthquakes are just one more reminder that nature give us, and that warns us of the character of "precarious tenant" that is the human being to occupy this planet.

Sreedivi

Nice Info..

mirzolino

I don't think that it is possible to predict or prevent earthquakes