For a long time, experts have been trying to find clues that can help in predicting earthquakes. These natural phenomena have been difficult to predict due to the lack of clear patterns and due to the fact that the movement and collision of tectonic plates occur over long periods.
Why Are Earthquakes So Hard To Predict?
Despite the advances in science, it is still virtually impossible to precisely know when and where earthquakes will occur. If experts can tell people when an earthquake is going to happen, then they can take steps to mitigate it. However, the Earth is a very complicated system.
Earthquakes happen in irregular cycles, which make it difficult to know when or where the next tremor may strike. While seismic records show that tremors and other geological movements occur before large earthquakes, faults generate as many random rumbles as meaningful tremors.
Predicting an earthquake would require unequivocal precursory signals. This involves noting some changes in the environment, such as foreshocks, ground deformation, and geochemical composition of groundwater. Other signals can also be observed by measuring the changes in electromagnetic activity and observing animal behavior.
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Isolation of Early Warning Pattern
An international team of researchers led by experts from the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin has successfully isolated a pattern of "foreshock" tremors in a laboratory. Predicting earthquakes requires measurement, characterization, and understanding of the events that happen right before the tremor, according to study author Chas Bolton.
Understanding the nature of this group of smaller tremors that precedes an earthquake offers hope for future forecasts.
To address this challenge, Bolton sifted through the seismic "noise" of lab-generated earthquakes in search for shock patterns. His team made a fault two inches (5.08 cm) long at the Pennsylvania State University laboratory, and they measured the earthquake cycles it produced. During the experiments, the miniature fault produced a pattern of increasingly strong tremors which got closer as the simulated earthquake approached. This pattern was different from those of weaker or slower earthquakes.
According to Bolton, the pattern was significant because it meant the tremors were connected to the main earthquake. It gives a physical explanation on what controls the foreshocks. Additionally, it provides a pattern for scientists to watch out for in the real world.
Detecting the patterns will not be as straightforward with deep faults which span hundreds of miles. However, UT's Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) director Demian Saffer said that the results of the study highlight the importance of connecting him, detecting precursory phenomena requires sensors and long-term observatories that can monitor creaks and groans to tell how the fault is behaving.
After their success of identifying a pattern of foreshock tremors, the research team plans to replicate their method in the real world. They will start in Texas with the hope of isolating patterns that are similar from the measurements made by the state's seismological network TexNet. They will look at tremor sequences associated with earthquakes with a magnitude greater than five.
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