The key to predict earthquakes? They detect an elusive tectonic phenomenon

A few months ago, American scientists published a compilation of information on more than 1.8 million low-magnitude earthquakes that had never been detected before. Now, researchers report important results from the badysis of these data.

In detail, specialists from the California Institute of Technology and Los Alamos National Laboratory conducted a new computerized badysis of data obtained from seismic monitoring stations located in southern California between 2008 and 2017, and found 10 times more tremors than those recorded in period

The importance of this finding is that many of these earthquakes, of magnitude less than 1, have been identified as precursors or precursors of large earthquakes and, although they have appeared repeatedly in computer simulations of movements telluric, their presence in actual measurements was sporadic.

This, however, prior to this badysis, which revealed that about 72% of the strong shocks in the region were preceded by elusive precursors. The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, also revealed that these precursor earthquakes appeared a median of 16.6 days in advance.

"We are moving towards statistical forecasts of earthquakes, but not [sean] Daniel Trugman, co-author of the study, explained that, despite advances made through this new discovery, complex seismic data make it very difficult to predict an earthquake with certainty.

"This sounds a bit like the weather forecast history, where hundreds of years of steady progress have been needed to reach the current situation," he added.

For the time being, researchers have found only unique tectonic patterns for each earthquake – not general patterns – and are working to refine their current badyzes and look for new detection methods to narrow the gap between simulations and real forecasts.

RT