Can animals predict earthquakes?
The earliest reference we have to unusual animal behavior prior to a significant earthquake is from Greece in 373 BC. Rats, weasels, snakes, and centipedes reportedly left their homes and headed for safety several days before a destructive earthquake. Anecdotal evidence abounds of animals, fish, birds, reptiles, and insects exhibiting strange behavior anywhere from weeks to seconds before an earthquake. However, consistent and reliable behavior prior to seismic events, and a mechanism explaining how it could work, still eludes us. Most, but not all, scientists pursuing this mystery are in China or Japan.
An earthquake forecast was made in China several decades ago, based on small earthquakes and unusual animal activity. Many people chose to sleep outside of their homes and thus were spared when the main earthquake indeed occurred and caused widespread destruction. However, usually no large earthquake follows this type of seismic activity, and, unfortunately, many earthquakes are preceded by no precursory events whatsoever. The next large Chinese event was entirely unheralded and scores of thousands of Chinese died.
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This report, prepared for the National Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council (NEPEC), is intended as a step toward improving communications about earthquake hazards between information providers and users who coordinate emergency-response activities in the Cascadia region of the Pacific Northwest. NEPEC charged a subcommittee of scientists with...
Gomberg, Joan S.; Atwater, Brian F.; Beeler, Nicholas M.; Bodin, Paul; Davis, Earl; Frankel, Arthur; Hayes, Gavin P.; McConnell, Laura; Melbourne, Tim; Oppenheimer, David H.; Parrish, John G.; Roeloffs, Evelyn A.; Rogers, Gary D.; Sherrod, Brian; Vidale, John; Walsh, Timothy J.; Weaver, Craig S.; Whitmore, Paul M.
Earthquake research at Parkfield, California, 1993 and beyond; report of the NEPEC working group to evaluate the Parkfield earthquake prediction experiment
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Lindberg, R.G.; Skiles, D.D.; Hayden, Page
U.S. Geological Survey role in earthquake prediction
Hill, David P.
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New Audiences, New Products for the National Seismic Hazard Maps
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Throughout California April is recognized as Earthquake Preparedness Month. This Thursday's lecture, "Predictable Earthquakes", will provide an update on the current ability of scientists to predict potentially destructive earthquakes and to separate fact from fiction from this intriguing topic.
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Aerial photo of the San Andreas Fault in the Carrizo Plain. By Ikluft - Own work, GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3106006
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