Ya’ll know there is no way to predict when the Gods plan to set the ground a-tremblin and a-rumblin.<\/p>\n
But a group of Italian geophysicists are sayin that the conventional thinkin about earthquakes may need a good shakin itself and that earthquake prediction is not as far fetched as ya’ll thought.<\/p>\n
In fact, rumble merchants have long known that certain aspects of earthquake behaviour are highly predictable. For example, earthquakes cluster together in time. So the more recently the ground has been a-rockin and a-rollin, the more likely it is to happen again. And Omori’s law says that the size of aftershocks after a major earthquake decays with time in a predictable way, a relation that has been known for over a hundred years.<\/p>\n
So rumble merchants can tell pretty accurately the likelihood of an earthquake in your area. What they can’t tell ya is how big it’s gonna be cos ain’t nobody found a pattern in the distribution of earthquake magnitudes over long time scales.<\/p>\n
At least until Eugenio “Red” Lippiello at the University of Naples and pals took a look at the data. They say that a pattern has emerged that allows them to predict the size of the next earthquake with reasonable accuracy. The rule is this: the next earthquake tends to have a magnitude similar but smaller than the previous one. Simple eh!<\/p>\n
A bit too simple if you ask me and suspiciously similar to Omori’s law (could they be rediscoverin’ the wheel here?). Earthquake prediction is an emotive topic; it can mean life or death for tens of thousands. So these guys had better be sure of what they’re sayin if they don’t wanna upset an awful lotta people.<\/p>\n