- (AFP) -- A US geophysicist has set the scientific world
ablaze by claiming to have cracked a holy grail: accurate earthquake prediction,
and warning that a big one will hit southern California by Sept 5.
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- Russian-born University of California at Los Angeles
(UCLA) professor Vladimir Keilis-Borok says he can foresee major quakes
by tracking minor temblors and historical patterns in seismic hotspots
that could indicate more violent shaking is on the way.
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- And he has made a chilling prediction that a quake measuring
at least 6.4 magnitude on the Richter scale will hit a 31,200-square-kilometre
area of southern California by September 5.
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- The team at UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary
Physics accurately predicted a 6.5-magnitude quake in central California
last December as well as an 8.1-magnitude temblor that struck the Japanese
island of Hokkaido in September.
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- "Earthquake prediction is called the Holy Grail
of earthquake science, and has been considered impossible by many scientists,"
said Keilis-Borok, 82.
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- "It is not impossible.
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- "We have made a major breakthrough, discovering
the possibility of making predictions months ahead of time, instead of
years, as in previously known methods."
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- If accurate, the prediction method would be critical
in an area like California, which is criss-crossed by fault lines that
have spawned devastating quakes over the years including ones which ravaged
San Francisco in 1989 and Los Angeles in 1994.
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- That has given credence to his research, which was endorsed
by a state panel, the California Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council,
earlier this month.
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- "Even two years back it was practically a dirty
word to say earthquake prediction," said Nancy Sauer, an organiser
of the annual conference of the Seismological Society of America which
began yesterday in Palm Springs.
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- The UCLA team - made up of US, Japanese, Canadian, European
and Russian experts in pattern recognition, geodynamics, seismology, chaos
theory, statistical physics and public safety - says it has developed algorithms
to detect earthquake patterns.
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- The experts predicted in June an earthquake measuring
6.4 or higher would strike within nine months in a 496-kilometre region
of central California, including San Simeon, where a 6.5-magnitude temblor
struck December 22, killing two people.
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- In July, they said they predicted a magnitude 7.0 or
higher quake in a region that included Hokkaido by December 28. The September
25 quake fell within that period.
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- Now they predict a major quake will hit an area that
stretches across desert regions to the east of Los Angeles, home to around
nine million people, including the Mojave desert and the resort town of
Palm Springs, which lies near the notorious San Andreas fault.
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- That is where experts began gathering for the Seismological
Society of America conference that looks sure to be dominated by passionate
discussion of Keilis-Borok's prediction method.
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- "There is something going on," Sauer told the
Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs. "People are at least willing
to entertain the idea. It is not seen so much as junk science now."
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- Another seismic expert, University of Oregon professor
Ray Weldon, was scheduled to present findings to the conference that appear
to support Keilis-Borok's research by saying the San Andreas fault is about
to enter a new and violent period of shaking.
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- The data, according to the Desert Sun, was gathered over
18 years around the famed fault, showing it is under high levels of stress.
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- "You could consider that support (for Keilis-Borok's
research)," Weldon was quoted as saying. "But I dont lend any
insight or support to a window of time."
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- But researchers still point to the fact that the science
of earthquake prediction has been notoriously inaccurate and the geographic
area targeted by the UCLA team for an imminent quake is very large.
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- "It is not specific," said Susan Hough, a seismologist
for the US Geological Survey based in Pasadena, near Los Angeles. "They've
made three predictions and two of them have been borne out."
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- Keilis-Borok himself acknowledged the caution expressed
by some of his colleagues. "Application of non-linear dynamics and
chaos theory is often counter-intuitive, so acceptance by some research
teams will take time."
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- But if his latest prediction that the earth will move
in the area around Los Angeles within the next five months proves accurate,
his research could end up saving lives and transforming seismology.
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