Earthquakes cannot be predicted, says U.S Geological Survey

Earthquakes cannot be predicted, it is the only thing that the world's seismologists are almost absolutely sure of; the only greater certainty is that they will continue to occur as long as this planet is alive.

The data available to scientists is still statistically limited given the short time of recording and the existence of humans to do it, in planetary geological terms.

Earthquakes prediction

Some of these ideas have been the mantra of seismologists since the origins of their research area, such as the American seismologist Susan Hough, who has a vast outreach work and who points out that an earthquake like the one that occurred in Turkey and Syria could be a surprise to people, but not to an "earthquake scientist".

"Turkey is a known earthquake zone. We know about these faults, we know that earthquakes of this size are possible," she told US National Public Radio (NPR), on the occasion of the 7.8 quakes that hit Turkey and Syria last Monday and which has so far left more than 7,000 dead.

Concerns about how to prevent human disasters caused by natural phenomena almost always occur until the disaster itself occurs. 

Perhaps the most difficult event to predict is that of a great earthquake, however, paradoxically, humanity knows what is necessary to prevent disasters as brutal as the one that occurred on Monday: build buildings that do not collapse. 

That is the greatest knowledge that different societies have developed based on this type of unavoidable lesson for the history of a nation. 

"One of my colleagues told me years ago that we can predict earthquakes as we need to," said Susan Hough, who has recently announced the recipient of the Frank Press Public Service Award, given by the Seismological Society of America (SSA). 

The scientist explains: "We know that earthquakes are going to happen, we know that certain parts of the world will be exposed to them and that we just need to build the environment accordingly."

Without mystic

“Currently, despite the studies focused on the prediction of major earthquakes, it is still not possible to determine when or where they may occur; that is to say, earthquakes cannot be predicted”, the National Seismological Service of Mexico has referred to repeatedly, practically every September in recent years. 

"No scientist has ever predicted a major earthquake (...) We do not know how, and we do not expect to know how at any time in the foreseeable future" an earthquake can be predicted, the US Geological Survey (USGS) has reported, on the occasion of earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.

Monday's quake and dozens of strong aftershocks hit an area known to be seismically active: It lies in an area characterized by a "triple junction," the point where three tectonic plates (in this case, the Anatolian plates) meet, Arabia and Africa). 

Three years ago, a magnitude 6.7 earthquake struck an area northeast of this devastating tremor.

There have been circulated predictions of people (“earthquake mystics”, they have been called) that predicted a great earthquake in the region, but it is nothing that the experts did not already know. 

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