Seismogenesis and Earthquake Forecasting: The Frank Evison Volume II

Book excerpt: This special issue of Pure and Applied Geophysics is the second of two volumes containing an augmented collection of papers originating from the Evison Symposium on Seismogenesis and Earthquake Forecasting held in Wellington, New Zealand, in February 2008. The volumes honor Frank Evison's interest in earthquake generation and forecasting. This volume includes descriptions of earthquake forecasting test centers through the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP) program and the first results from the Regional Earthquake Likelihood Model (RELM) experiment in California. Other papers discuss methods of testing predictions, in particular by the use of error diagrams. There is discussion of prediction methodologies using seismicity, including an application of the statistical technique of Hidden Markov Models to identify changes in seismicity and a new technique for identifying precursory quiescence. Several papers employ other data besides seismicity, such as geologically determined faults, calculations of stress changes via Coulomb stress modeling, tomographically determined velocity structure, groundwater, crustal deformation, and comparisons of real earthquakes to synthetic seismicity determined from hypothesized earthquake physics. One paper focuses on the prediction of human casualties in the event that a large earthquake occurs anywhere on the globe. The volume will be useful to students and professional researchers who are interested in the earthquake preparation process and in converting that understanding into forecasts of earthquake occurrence.