Can Earthquakes Be Predicted Algorithmically? 94
An anonymous reader with this story about a practical application of big data analysis as applied to the trove of sensor readings taken by satellites and by ground-based senosrs. A company called Terra Seismic says that earthquakes can be predicted 20-30 days before they occur, by sifting data for thermal, ionic, and other abnormalities in areas where quakes are considered likely. Says the linked article: "The company claims to have successfully predicted a number of earthquakes. For example, on 5th of April 2013, the firm issued a forecast for Japan. On 12th April 2013, an earthquake hit the identified area and 33 people were injured. On 4th June 2013, the firm again made a prediction for an earthquake in North Italy. On 21st June, an earthquake hit the identified area. On 3rd March 2013, the firm issued a forecast for an earthquake in Iran. Again, after 35 days, an earthquake hit the identified area."
Lists (Score:5, Insightful)
how about a list of times they predicted an earthquake and nothing happened.
without context its meaningless
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Re:Lists (Score:4, Informative)
You win!
Here's a map of California earthquakes for the last week:
http://scedc.caltech.edu/recen... [caltech.edu]
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My co-worker from Pakistan said that he was taught by his imam, and in all seriousness, that earthquakes occur when a married person cheats on their spouse. Adultery FTQ (for the quake)!
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I don't even want to know who cheated on who in Chile in 2003, Indonesia in 2005, or Japan in 2011.
Praise Allah, peace be upon him.
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Or in Valdivia in 1960
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Other people have claimed the stats provided are useless if we don't have their failures as well. Missing the Nepal earthquake is one of those failures, since Nepal is also covered by the same satellites that they get their data from.
Plates can move because they are lubricated by superheated steam (which is why all the plates on Venus are locked in place). This is why tracking ground water levels is a good predictor. It's also why fracking increases earthquakes in the surrounding area. One way to monitor t
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Superheated steam lubrication and steam bubbles? Pretty sure all current theories hold that plates move over molten rock, aka magma, not steam. As far as steam bubbles, I think you're confusing earthquake activity with magma heating groundwater, aka volcanic activity.
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They move on molten rock, but when they collide, superheated steam "lubricates" the sides of the impact, allowing the two plates to slide against each other and relieve the strain. If this didn't happen, earthquakes would be a lot worse, but only until there's no more water and the plates become locked in place, like Venus.
On a smaller scale, fracking does the same thing.
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Not to mention that they won't pick up "slow earthquakes" such as the ones along the ring of fire.
http://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Lea... [gns.cri.nz]
It's when these _stop_ happening you need to worry as it means pressure is building up.
Re:Lists (Score:4, Insightful)
how about a list of times they predicted an earthquake and nothing happened.
without context its meaningless
That's incorrect. They do give you all the context you need.
They say they can predict earthquakes between 20 days and 30 days before they occur. For the Japanese earthquake, they failed. For the North Italy earthquake, they failed. And for the Iran earthquake they failed. Three out of three failures, even taking into account their standard error rate of plus or minus 5 days, I'd say those failure rates are pretty significant.
Those guys should go into the earthquake insurance and earthquake protection business. It's as if someone was paying actively attention to their predictions, and was actively making sure that no earthquake would ever occur during any of the 10-days windows they predicted. Please don't tell me that's just a coincidence. Nobody can be that unlucky. The entire stock market should just follow these guys, and bet against them consistently.
Re:Lists (Score:5, Funny)
earthquake protection business
"Nice business you got here. It'd be a shame if an earthquake happened to it."
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How is it incorrect? I don't know if they stated those predictions in public. The article may give you context, but you are stating context in terms of available data.
If they are successful, it means they can exclude false positives and include false negatives. Some anonymous fuck can't give us context.
3 of 3 failures you say, but what is the success rate? I'm absolutely positive that you're absolutely correct, and this is just the next load that the horse shit out of its arse. But we should, if we in
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3 of 3 failures you say, but what is the success rate?
Whether they only made three predictions, or 100,000 predictions, was besides the point for me. I was assuming that they used the best three predictions they could find that backed up their claim (which actually they do not). Had those three predictions been correct, then yes, I would have asked for more data and I would have dug deeper. As it stands, I didn't need to do any of that.
And please do not take my last paragraph too seriously, I was attempting to make a joke. I do not believe they're able to pred
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If it's not stated in public, then it is not worth the 30-m high letters in which it wasn't painted on the side of a building in down town Geneva.
Actually, there is a fair point there : there is no recognised forum for posting such predictions. And there are a lot of internet kooks out there who all think that they've got the perfect solution, but not one of them is willing to stand by a "prediction".
Some ground rules have been proposed about what c
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They say they can predict earthquakes between 20 days and 30 days before they occur.
Two possible scenarios I can think of:
1) They issued the warning after analyzing the data from within the time window.
2) The statement "between 20 days and 30 days before they occur" may really mean "as far out as 20 to 30 days before they occur."
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included in statistical "significance" calculation (Score:2)
And what of false positives? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if it were used, people would likely begin to ignore it.
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I am half drunk and tired, can anyone find a better source than one that masturbates with buzz words?
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Re:And what of false positives? (Score:4, Insightful)
If the false positives are low enough people can make basic preparations.
Anyone in an earthquake zone should already have made basic preparations.
Re:And what of false positives? (Score:5, Insightful)
Both false positives and true negatives come with a cost. Calculate the probability with which a system is right, and you only have to do basic math to find out whether the prediction system gives you an economic or humanitarian advantage. As the humanitarian cost for false positives is very low compared to the economic one, it is very possible that there will be an unbalance between "most (economically or humanitarian) profitable strategies". Deciding between those can be I guess cause for some political debate.
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In their defense, that number is probably the most accurately calculated average economic contribution per individual ever done. Nobody else cared enough to do the math.
It is, also, a low-balled figure - since it doesn't include any kind of compensation for the emotional losses to families and excludes even fairly common edge-cases like children ending up in foster care if they have no living relatives anymore.
Now it's very hard to put a number on sadness, courts have systems for doing so but they are contr
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It's not just economics it also strikes at the heart of whether or not the system actually *works*. If I create an algorithm that predicts an earthquake every 30 days in every major earthquake prone region I'll be right every single month because there is a major earthquake in one of the regions every month. It's like putting a bet on every horse in a race. You're guaranteed to win!
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You have to remember that countries like Italy have imprisoned seismologists for making inaccurate predictions.
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False positives also have a negative humanitarian cost, in having people live in stress and fear of an earthquake that doesn't happen, then losing faith in science/the authorities. And correct predictions over too large a range of dates would also have huge negatives -- because there is no benefit if people can't act on the knowledge.
As for humanitarian costs, anyone truly concerned with that would probably be donating to a third world country...
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It is useless at this point even if it had no false positives. It can only 'predict' earthquakes with an error margin of days. Any seasoned geologist can do that these days, we've known about earthquake predictors for quite some time and given the measurements, you can predict an impending earthquake quite successfully. The problem is what to do with the data. We can't "fix" earthquakes or stop them before they happen. If you predict an earthquake in San Fransisco or Tokyo that may happen in the next 30 day
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Citation required.
If this is true (which I strongly doubt) then the geological press would be more full of it than if NASA launched a faster-then-light space ship and came back with a pointy-eared Buddha. Because there has already been a Buddha, but an effective earthquake prediction methodology would be something startlingly new.
Citation required. Journal name, volume and
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Guess you didn't catch the tragicomedy in the UK
The only comedy stopped at about 10.01pm when they released the exit poll results. After that, there was nothing to do except drink.
SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:2)
I am also interested in how much they predicted and also crucially their unsuccessful predictions.
nt (Score:2)
I'm glad someone's finally taking a crack at it.
At least the theory seems well grounded.
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So what was the entire seismology field doing until now?
I don't know, but this will have them quaking in their boots.
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Sensitivity and Specificity (Score:5, Insightful)
Sensitivity and specificity or it didn't happen.
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Baffled that this is modded as "Funny".
Re:Of Course (Score:4, Informative)
Heisenberg says that you may never be able to get enough of the right type of information.
Quantum Mechanics says some things cannot be predicted.
Re:Of Course (Score:4, Interesting)
No. (Score:5, Funny)
Betteridge's law.
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You read one thing on the internet, and have since been using it to bestow upon the ignorant masses some sort of wisdom.
What happens when you're wrong? You argue statistics?
Do you have background information on the subject, or are you just going to repeat something that most of the readers here should know? Do you feel better? Do we feel better? What would Betteridge say?
He'd say sod off.
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If you want a longer response, then I suggest you read a few books on geology and seismology. Earthquakes are far too poorly understood to be predictable and all the interesting events are happening tens or hundreds of kilometres underground with no feasible way to observe or measure them.
If you want a scientific paper, read this [ucla.edu].
I was simply trying to save everybody time.
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Except that in the case of earthquakes we're practically blind. It would be like a dog catching a ball but not being able to look up. So unless there is some sort of relationship between the average number of Buzzfeed posts in a given week to seismic activity in Brunei you can't accurately predict earthquakes from our very limited information. So far this hasn't been demonstrated.
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So unless there is some sort of relationship between the average number of Buzzfeed posts in a given week to seismic activity in Brunei you can't accurately predict earthquakes from our very limited information. So far this hasn't been demonstrated.
Other than things like the article we are discussing now. Where some manner of activity resulted in predictions that were close. Full details aren't available to verify if they are lucky charlatans, or good scientists.
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Plenty of dogs will consistently catch a ball out of the air - you want to tell me they don't know where it's going to land ?
Children catch balls many years before we teach them the maths needed to calculate their curves.
We have an instinctive ability to do that math, an intuitive knack for maths and physics which is quite powerful. If we could apply it to school maths hardly anybody would ever fail.
The trouble is, it's also imperfect, most people intuitively believe that heavier objects fall faster for exa
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We have an instinctive ability to do that math, an intuitive knack for maths and physics which is quite powerful. If we could apply it to school maths hardly anybody would ever fail.
Nope. It's not math. It's about feedback. You "guess" where it's going to land based on previous experience, and adjust as you see it coming. Try playing volleyball with a strobe light. You can see it, watch the path, but will have great trouble hitting it. Or take an adult with a math degree who hasn't played baseball. Hit a long fly ball towards them. They'll run in, as they'll feel like it'll fall short, but it will fly well over their heads.
Math is unrelated to catching. Catching is a feedback
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The argument was that you don't need to understand the physics to predict it. And the dogs don't understand the physics, but can predict where it's going.
Although I must add, my older dog, whose running days are somewhat behind her, can predict the balls path much better because she a
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Deaf and blind dogs lacking a sense of smell will most certainly have trouble catching a ball. And that's the situation we find ourselves in with respect to earthquakes: All the interesting activity takes place far beyond our ability to measure or even sense.
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You don't have to completely understand the physics to make predictions, but when it comes to earthquakes we cannot even observe the important parts of the system that are precursors to earthquakes. In fact, understanding the physics is most likely not the problem... it's the inability to measure any useful variables that stymies us.
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Predictions (Score:3)
Sure, I can say that I made predictions about earthquakes two years ago. I'd be impressed if they said today that in 10 days that there would be a magnitude 7.5 in a specific area and be right.
Yes (Score:1)
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Technically speaking, the tremendous number of earthquakes in Oklahoma aren't the immediate result of fracking; they are the result of wastewater injection. Now, the wastewater does come from fracking...so...there you go.
This was seen back in the 60's in the Coalinga area of California.
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More like: for each (fracking in area) earthquake_probability += 50
Can Earthquakes Be Predicted Algorithmically? (Score:2)
Prediction vs forecast - the article gets it wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
FTA:
With the recent Nepal earthquake claiming more than 6,000 lives, many of us have often wondered why earthquakes cannot be predicted the same way as Tsunamis or cyclones are predicted?
This already tells a lot on how much the authors of the article know about forecasting vs predicting - this opening line is wrong in so many ways. Tropical cyclones (which grow into typhoons aka hurricanes), tsunamis, tornadoes and other such natural events can not be predicted any more accurate than earthquakes.
Tropical cyclones can be predicted with a similar accuracy as earthquakes: this are the key areas, and they happen with that frequency. That's how much you can predict a cyclone to happen: Hong Kong is affected by about eight tropical cyclones per year, and about two a year will give rise to a T8 or higher signal. That's predicting: we've had years with five such typhoons hitting, and years without any hitting the city. When a cyclone forms (which is never predicted, only observed as it happens - like an earthquake is observed as it happens), meteorologists indeed are able to forecast with reasonable accuracy where it will head, and what strength it takes. This usually leaves a few days for people to react.
Tsunamis can be predicted with even less accuracy: when an earthquake or similar event has happened the presence of a tsunami can be measured, and a quick forecast can be made of when and where it will hit shorelines, and an alert may be issued. This leaves usually a few hours to half a day for people to react.
Tornadoes form without much warning, leaving often mere minutes for people to get out of the way and into shelters - if the alarms sound at all. They, too can not be predicted.
Earthquakes happen so fast, and end so fast, that there is nothing to forecast, no alarm to sound when it happens. By the time an alert is out, the quake is pretty much over.
And there we have the difference between prediction and forecasting. Forecasting is a lot more accurate by nature, as it is reacting to what is already happening, and works quite well for following slow processes such as the formation of a tropical cyclone. I'm used to know about an incoming typhoon a few days ahead, so plenty of time to prepare. Forecasting earthquakes, well, that doesn't work like that.
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I think it would be really neat if one day, there are systems and machines that can gather enough data about what's happening beneath the earths' crust, around the tectonic plates (especially high risk areas) that scientists can create models to forecast possible earthquakes and magnitudes for a given area, using probabilities just like in weather forecasting.
It makes sense that earthquakes don't JUST happen out of nowhere; perhaps there are a lot of realistic signs going on that science can use to see the
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Yes - and.... These seismic activities take place - which they measure. Are they not Forecasting which one will become an Earthquake? A tropical storm begins to form (Prediction by your definition) - and then teams begin to Forecast its path, how strong, and other damages (storm surge etc).
Does a "tropical storm" form beneath the earth - these gases, heat, micro-quakes. And from that information Forecast "this will be an earthquake, it will take place [here], and damages are likely to be [y]" ?
Scienti
Just be prepared (Score:1)
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I have a gun, thank you for stocking up for me.
Useless (Score:2)
Why does /. even post this crap? There's nothing in the article that shows any evidence that this is real.
..and? (Score:2)
Do you think perhaps Siesmologists have not done this already, with better worldwide data, and better resources, and found that it does not work ?
Saying there will be an earthquake in a band of 30 days and getting it right 1/3 times is useless, if the mass evacuations cost more in time, money and lives than the earthquake itself ...
And eventually people are going to accuse them of crying wolf and ignore them ...
people have tried for at least 40 years (Score:2)
The most likely methods seem to be based on previous seismicitty- future quakes will occur where previous quakes have occurred, e.g. tectonic bondaries. There are tighter algorithms such as fore-shock and after-shock statistics: a larger qua
two approaches: physics & data mning (Score:2)
Pattern recognis more pragmatic. I
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I think you mean Parkfield [wikipedia.org], rather than Garfield [wikipedia.org].
(Trivia, there was at one point an actual Garfield, California [wikipedia.org] at one point in history -- it was in the central valley.)