As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, seismologist Lucy Jones is a professor from the University of CalTech in California and the author of more than 100 scientific papers in which she analyses faults and the earth’s crust. She commented for RTL Direkt on the recent earthquakes that hit central Croatia hard.
She repeated what all seismologists have been repeating, that earthquakes quite simply cannot be predicted.
“Nobody can predict an individual, separate event. The problem is that the magnitude of an earthquake is determined during the earthquake itself so there is no information in the soil about how strong it will be before it actually happens. Earthquakes happen every day and the big ones don’t start out any differently than the small ones do. Knowing whether it will occur today or this year is like knowing precisely when a twig will snap when you bend it, for example,’’ she told RTL.
“Earthquakes are coincidences, but one aspect of them isn’t accidental, and that is subsequent earthquakes. About 5% to 10% of subsequent earthquakes are stronger than the first earthquake is, that is, in 5% of cases the subsequent earthquake is stronger than the first earthquake, Croatia had that. So, now we know that earthquakes will happen and you can expect them to continue to occur for a long time to come,’’ said seismologist Lucy Jones.
She was also asked if there are any research programmes and/or scientific attempts to predict earthquakes before they occur.
“If the strength is determined during the earthquake only, then it’s theoretically impossible to predict a separate event. There are practical solutions to this impossible problem, though. One of them is to take advantage of subsequent earthquakes which allows us to at least recognise more dangerous periods. So, we can’t predict the exact time when an earthquake will happen, but we can use that to know when earthquakes are more likely,’’ she said.
‘’We’re also working on something called the Early Warning System. It isn’t a prediction but an extremely quick recognition that an earthquake has begun so that we can release this information to people before seismic waves reach them because those waves travel for a certain amount of time. We have such a system on the west coast of North America, Japan has it and the European Union is developing such a system and is looking to put it into operation, especially in Eastern Europe in the area where you have more earthquakes than elsewhere,’’ seismologist Lucy Jones explained.
“I think earthquakes create a feeling of fear which is greater than the actual threat they post to your life. We’re very afraid that we’ll die during an earthquake, but this happens very, very rarely. Understand this, everything around you drives you into fear, but what follows will probably be less intense than what you already had. Poorly constructed buildings have already collapsed,’’ Jones concluded.
For the latest information on the earthquake emergency, follow the dedicated TCN section.
