Earthquake prediction

Earthquake prediction is the attempt to specify an impending earthquake’s time, location, and magnitude in advance. Reliable precise prediction is not currently possible.

Earthquake precursor: A measurable change that may occur before an earthquake and could provide information about its likelihood. Candidate precursors are the signals prediction efforts try to distinguish from ordinary Earth behavior.
Earthquake: The sudden shaking of the ground caused by the release of energy in Earth’s crust. Prediction concerns when, where, and how large this event will be.
1975 Haicheng earthquake prediction: A Chinese evacuation before the 1975 Haicheng earthquake, later cited as a successful prediction. The case is often presented as evidence for prediction, though foreshocks and other circumstances complicate the account.
Long-term earthquake forecast: An estimate of earthquake likelihood over years or decades for a region or fault system. Long-term forecasts guide preparedness but do not specify an impending earthquake’s exact time.
Foreshock: An earthquake that precedes a larger earthquake in the same area and sequence. Some mainshocks have foreshocks, but they are identifiable as such only afterward.
Fault (geology): A fracture or zone of fractures in rock along which movement has occurred. Earthquakes commonly occur when stress overcomes friction along a fault.
1976 Tangshan earthquake: A catastrophic earthquake that struck Tangshan, China, in July 1976. The disaster followed the Haicheng episode and exposed the limits of claims that earthquakes could be reliably predicted.
Aftershock forecast: A probabilistic estimate of aftershock activity following a larger earthquake. Aftershock forecasts use an observed event as a starting point rather than predicting the first rupture.
Seismicity rate: The frequency of earthquakes in a region over a specified period. Changes in earthquake frequency can inform probabilistic forecasts, though they do not establish an imminent event.
Elastic rebound theory: The theory that rocks deform elastically as stress accumulates, then release stored energy when a fault slips. It explains the earthquake cycle without providing a precise clock for the next rupture.

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