Cascadia's Fault - Jerry Thompson [122]
The rate of car crashes may be estimated, but the time and location of an individual accident “cannot be predicted.” As for precursors, even though speeding frequently precedes accidents, only a small fraction of speeding violations are followed by serious accidents. Therefore speeding is not a reliable precursor. Similarly, he argued, there are no reliable precursors to seismic shocks. Even after a car crash has begun to happen, its final extent and severity depend on other equally unpredictable, quickly changing interactions between drivers, cars, and other objects. Put simply, car wrecks and quakes are too chaotic to foretell, according to Geller.
In October 1996 he joined forces with David Jackson and Yan Kagan at UCLA and Francesco Mulargia at the University of Bologna to write a critique for Science that appeared under the provocative headline “Earthquakes Cannot Be Predicted.” In the article they cast doubt on the Haicheng prediction story, suggesting that political pressures had led to exaggerated claims. They wrote that there are “strong reasons to doubt” that any observable, identifiable, or reliable precursors exist. They pointed out that long-term predictions both for the Tokai region in Japan and for Parkfield had failed while other damaging jolts (Loma Prieta, Landers, and Northridge in California, plus Okushiri Island and Kobe in Japan) had not been predicted. They cautioned that false hopes about the effectiveness of prediction efforts had already created negative side effects.
After the frightening and damaging Northridge temblor in southern California, for example, stories began to spread that an even larger quake was about to happen but that scientists were keeping quiet to avoid causing panic. The gossip became so widespread that Caltech seismologists felt compelled to issue a denial: “Aftershocks will continue. However, the rumor of the prediction of a major earthquake is false. Caltech cannot release predictions since it is impossible to predict earthquakes.”
Not surprisingly the article spawned a series of energetic replies from those who felt the baby of prediction science should not be thrown out with the bathwater of uncertainty. Max Wyss at the University of Alaska took issue with almost every point made by Geller and company. He countered that in 10 to 30 percent of large quakes foreshocks do occur and are precursors, that strain is released in earthquakes only after it has been accumulated for centuries, and that measuring the build-up of stresses within the crust is therefore not a waste of time and money.
Wyss concluded that most experts living at the time of Columbus would have said it was impossible to reach India by sailing west from Europe and that “funds should not be wasted on such a folly.” And while Geller et al seemed to be making a similar mistake, Wyss doubted that “human curiosity and ingenuity can be prevented in the long run.” The secrets of quake prediction would be unlocked sooner or later. Richard Aceves and Stephen Park at University of California Riverside suggested it was premature to give up on prediction. “The length of an experiment,” they wrote, “should not be an argument against the potential value of the eventual results.”
In a later article Geller repeated his contention that “people would be far better off living and working in buildings that were designed to withstand earthquakes when they did occur.” He insisted that the “incorrect impression” quakes can be foretold leads to “wasting funds on pointless prediction research,” diverting resources from more “practical precautions that could save lives and reduce property damage when a quake comes.”
In the spring of 1997 someone with inside knowledge leaked a government document that slammed Japan’s vaunted $147 million a year prediction research program. The confidential