Can you predict earthquakes?

[Minister Monardo]

No. Neither the USGS nor any other scientists have ever predicted a major earthquake. We do not know how, and we do not expect to know how any time in the foreseeable future. USGS scientists can only calculate the probability that a significant earthquake will occur in a specific area within a certain number of years.

Can you predict earthquakes?

Do solar flares or magnetic storms (space weather) cause earthquakes?
Solar flares and magnetic storms belong to a set of phenomena known collectively as "space weather". Technological systems and the activities of modern civilization can be affected by changing space-weather conditions. However, it has never been demonstrated that there is a causal relationship between space weather and earthquakes. Indeed, over the course of the Sun's 11-year variable cycle, the occurrence of flares and magnetic storms waxes and wanes, but earthquakes occur without any such 11-year variability. Since earthquakes are driven by processes in the Earth's interior, they would occur even if solar flares and magnetic storms were to somehow cease occurring.

Do solar flares or magnetic storms (space weather) cause earthquakes?

 

[timothyu]

The solar flares in the next three weeks or so should be an indicator of whether flares affect earthquakes in the way the aurora borealis affects the weather. Supposedly the largest sunspots in 32 years?

 

[prodromos]

Youtube channel Dutchsinse seems to do a pretty fair job of predicting earthquakes

 

[Minister Monardo]

Youtube channel Dutchsinse seems to do a pretty fair job of predicting earthquakes

Latest episode posted 7 hours ago.

 

[Jonathan Walkerin]

Why on earth would solar flares affect the movements of tectonic plates ?

 

[Ophiolite]

Why on earth would solar flares affect the movements of tectonic plates ?

It seems superficially unlikley, but I suggest caution. Acceptance of continental drift/plate tectonics was delayed because no obvious mechanism existed and established authorities, such as Harold Jeffries, objected that, for example, the mantle was too rigid - an error on his part.

The first requirement is to see if there is a case to answer. Is there correlation between space weather, as it impacts the Earth, and the occurence (size and frequency) of Earthquakes? I understand there is some suggestive, but not conclusive material.

If such a correlation were confirmed the next thing to do is to repeat one hundred times "Correlation is not the equivalent of Causation." With that warning in mind one may then proceed to explore possible mechanisms.

Purely as a speculation for entertainment:

• Solar flares impacting on the Earth's magnetic field alter the structure and behaviour of that field. The field is generated in the outer Fe, Ni core, by a geodynamo that is powered by convective circulation. Changes in the field, caused by space weather, may alter the pattern of circulation. Now the transition from outer core to mantle, the D-Layer, is enigmatic: complex in its topography, seemingly variable in character and with ill-defined effects upon the mantle. Might variations in core circulation induce an effect in the mantle that could be translated, perhaps by changes in thermal plumes to the asthenosphere and the overlying lithosphere, there by triggering earthquakes
  • The principal objection to this mechanism (or rather a suite of mechanisms) is the time delay between initiation and realisation, a delay that would likely be measured, not even in decades or centuries, but millenia
• We know that electrical effects are associated with seismic activity: changes in ground resistivity, 'earthquake lights', lightning. Might the changes in the magnetic field, induced by space weather, further alter any electromagnetic fields associated with faults? In turn I can envisage that changing the ionic balance of entrained water and thus the lubricity of the water, thereby facilitating fault movement.
  • The main reservations here are the absence of relevant information by which to assess the plausability of adequately large changes in each stage of the process.

So, while I think it is unlikely, I don't see any grounds for ruling it out now.

 

[Ophiolite]

The solar flares in the next three weeks or so should be an indicator of whether flares affect earthquakes in the way the aurora borealis affects the weather. Supposedly the largest sunspots in 32 years?

Here are three points:

• Solar activity in the next three weeks is essentially incapable of serving as indicator of a flare>>earthquake cause>>effect relationship. If the relationship were that clear, so that it could be demonstrated in a single instance, or even a single cylce, of solar activity then we wouldn't be having this conversation. The relationship, if present, is subtle and can only be exposed by careful statistical analysis based upon many decades of data.
• Moreover, the relationship that can initially be established is simply a correlation. Correlation does not demonstrate causation, it merely opens it as a possibility.
  
• The aurora borealis does not effect the weather. Certain changes in the weather and the aurora borealis are both effects of a common cause - solar flares. (i.e. correlation, but not causation.) Precision in such matters is important to prevent garbled unerstanding of the science becoming fixed in popular thinking.

Youtube channel Dutchsinse seems to do a pretty fair job of predicting earthquakes

I work very hard at maintaining an open mind, an effort very much encouraged by my delight when a bastion of current scientific thinking is overthrown. With this in mind I shall be taking a look at this YouTube channel. However, the notion that a YouTube channel is a) a good source for scientific breakthroughs and b) has actually produced something of value in that regard, stretches my credulity towards breaking point. (For those of you with a background in materials science I'm well past yieldpoint and nearing the end of the strain hardening region of a stress-strain plot. )

 

[sjastro]

The 2009 earthquake which largely damaged the medieval town of L'Aquila in Italy and killed 288 people resulted in seven scientists being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for failing to "predict" the earthquake.
The word "predict" needs to be qualified in this case as prior to the earthquake there were low level tremors.
The scientists were accused of downplaying the significance of the tremors and failing to provide adequate warning to the public of a possible earthquake.
The situation was made even more complicated as the earthquake was "predicted" due to an increase in radon levels from the surface.
The connection between radon levels and earthquakes has been studied since the 1970s and is an example of the dangers of confusing correlation with causation.
In fact the correlation is not very strong and the study has been largely abandoned today.
The convictions created outrage in the scientific world and was seen as an attack on science.

As is typical of human nature there always has to be a scapegoat.
Six of the scientists had their convictions overturned on appeal and finally quashed.
The unlucky seventh had his conviction confirmed but with a suspended sentence.
Seven-year legal saga ends as Italian official is cleared of manslaughter in earthquake trial