Earthquake Prediction

Earthquake Prediction

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  • Title: Earthquake Prediction
  • Author: K. Shimazaki, W. Stuart
  • Publisher: Springer Basel AG
  • Pages: 242

This issue of Pure and Applied Geophysics contains papers presented at the Earthquake Prediction session of the 22nd General Assembly of the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth’s Interior. The meeting was held in August, 1983, in conjunction with the XVIII General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, at Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany, and was convened by J. R. Rice and K. Shimazaki. Some papers given at the meeting are not included here, and several papers not given at the meeting but germane to the meeting themes have been added.

The papers given at the meeting and in this issue reflect the wide variety of current international research on earthquake prediction. The contributions also illustrate the recent rapid progress in earthquake prediction, which has been largely due to the increased number and accuracy of field measurements, careful attention to errors in data, and sound application of theoretical principles.

Papers dealing with laboratory studies, normally prominent in earthquake prediction symposia, were under-represented at the meeting. In this issue the two main themes are ( 1) reports and interpretations of new seismological and non-seismological field observations, and (2) theoretical and statistical studies applied to old and new data. Most papers describe possible precursors, and a few papers discuss specific procedures for attempting a prediction.

The temporal variation in precursory ground tilt prior to the 1944 Tonankai (Japan) earthquake, which is a great thrust-type earthquake along the Nankai Trough, is discussed using the analysis of data from repeated surveys along short-distance leveling routes. SATO (1970) pointed out that an anomalous tilt occurred one day before the earthquake at Kakegawa near the northern end of the focal region of the earthquake. From the analysis of additional leveling data, Sato’s result is re-examined and the temporal change in the ground tilt is deduced for the period of about ten days beginning six days before the earthquake. A remarkable precursory tilt started two or three days before the earthquake.

The direction of the precursory tilt was up towards the south (uplift on the southern Nankai Trough side), but the coseismic tilt was up towards the southeast, perpendicular to the strike of the main thrust fault of the Tonankai earthquake. The postseismic tilt was probably opposite of the coseismic tilt. The preseismic tilt is attributed to precursory slip on part of the main fault. If similar precursory deformation occurs before a future earthquake expected to occur in the adjacent Tokai region, the deformation may help predict the time of the Tokai earthquake.

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