(April 21, 2009) According to an article in the April 13th edition of The New York Times, the ability to determine in advance the location, timing or intensity of a seismic event is beyond the abilities of modern science. Though that hasn’t stopped scientists from trying.

Put another way, if one were to ask a geologist what causes an earthquake, they could probably respond in their sleep that earthquakes are caused by the rupturing of fault lines in the tectonic plates that comprise the earth’s crust. But try and ask that same geologist what might cause a rupture to accelerate from an inch per year to 3000 miles per hour, thus triggering an intense and destructive earthquake, and one is more likely to receive a dumbfounded stare in reply.

There have been a few instances in recent history of scientists forewarning of an earthquake that later occurs as they predicted. Chinese geologist Geng Qingguo was able to predict the timing, location and intensity of the M7.9 earthquake that caused more than 80,000 deaths in China’s Sichuan province last May with chilling accuracy. More recently, Giampaolo Giuliani was able to predict the M6.3 quake killed almost 300 people in central Italy on April 6th.

Unfortunately the observations used as the basis for many such predictions, like detecting sharp rises in radon gas levels in an area where scientists suspect an earthquake will soon occur, are not consistent enough to be used reliably. While radon levels might have been noticeably high prior to the onset of some earthquakes in the past, the preconditions of others have had virtually nonexistent levels of radon and scientists have thus far been unable to discern a useful pattern.

The issue of predicting earthquakes in advance has grown increasingly complicated over the years, as scientists have determined a variety of human activities known to set off an earthquake that might not have otherwise occurred. Mining, deep core drilling and the filling of large dam reservoirs have all been circumstantially linked to the triggering of earthquakes, though the geological explanation of the man-quake causal link remains speculative to this day.

Efforts to explain that link more clearly have recently been redoubled as scientists try to determine to what extent the Zipingpu dam reservoir played a role in triggering China’s deadly earthquake of May 2008. The Zipingpu reservoir is situated only a few miles from the quake’s epicentre directly atop a major fault line, and contains nearly 320 million tonnes of water.

Jameson Berkow, Probe International, April 21, 2009

Read Kenneth Chang’s original article on The New York Times website

Learn more about how dams can trigger earthquakes