We may still not know how to predict earthquakes – but there are ways to prepare

In 2011, scientists released a study with potential to change how we predict major earthquakes, and how we understand the nature of a "slow slip" phenomenon: A series of small, unnoticeable quakes had taken place in the same area for about 44 minutes before a 7.6-magnitude quake struck Izmit, Turkey in 1999.

The study put forth the thought that "foreshocks" like this could help predict where a major earthquake would hit, and if scientists could figure out how to tell them apart from other small earthquakes foreshocks could uniquely serve as a sort of tectonic alert system.

But a new study by scientists at California's Stanford University and Boğaziçi University in Turkey, released Monday in Nature, has taken the wind out of the sales of that theory, a bit.

"Foreshocks are something that only happen before large earthquakes, we just can't tell them apart from ordinary earthquakes, and this one particular foreshock sequence reconfirms that," said lead author William Ellsworth, a professor of geophysics at Stanford School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.

"They have all the same characteristics of small earthquakes that happen all the time. So we only know they're foreshocks after a large earthquake occurs. Some of them precede larger earthquakes, most of them do not."

The study helps bolster the Cascade model, which holds that while foreshocks can trend along a fault and tip into a spot that triggers a more major earthquake, they don't have to. They may just travel along faultlines and not trigger a bigger tremor.

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The 2011 study only examined data from a single seismic station. But this latest study expanded the number of stations contributing, demonstrating that the foreshocks were in different places, traveling west to east along the fault line.

As Ellsworth notes, it's a lot like randomly placing dominoes on a table.

"One fell over, it knocked over the next one, and then we got unlucky and the spot that nucleated the big earthquake took off," he said. "From what we can tell at this point, all earthquakes basically start the same way: They start small and then grow. And the challenge has always been how quickly we could identify or if there are indications before an earthquake occurred that there were larger things happening. But in this case it remains unresolved question."

Scientists in this realm are working to understand just how much of this they may someday be able to observe, and how much of this is "simply so small as to be unobservable." As it stands researchers are making inferences about what's happening deep underground, in the zone where earthquakes are actually initiating.

And Ellsworth says it's possible these deformations are small enough they'll never be able to take measurements. But, as he notes, that's not the only way to prepare for an earthquake.

"When we talk about prediction usually we're thinking about a precise definition of when, where, and how big. So if we could provide a very short term prediction say of the great earthquake in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, one should ask what value could that be, and what are the things we actually know well enough we should take care of today," Ellsworth said. The advanced warning could help people get out of the reach of a tsunami.

"But even if we do those things it doesn't prevent buildings from falling down, infrastructure from collapsing. Those are things we know we need to address, and there's no reason to not address them today.

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"In Seattle, for example, the replacement for the Alaskan Viaduct is really an important step in terms of public safety. In light of earthquakes that will happen someday; it isn't really a question of if they will happen it's when they will happen. We just don't know when they will happen, but we understand where they'll occur, and how strong their effects will be really quite well."

His takeaway from the study is that while there won't be a simple solution to short-term earthquake prediction any time soon, there are other steps to take in the meantime while we wait out "the big one" if – or when – it hits.

"The prudent thing to do is assume that earthquakes are going to happen and we need to ensure our families, our communities are going to be resilient so that when the earthquake does happen we'll be able to recover quickly, hopefully with very little loss."