Scientists Get a Step Closer to Predicting the Size of Future Earthquakes

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The various idiosyncrasies of minor earthquakes make them hard to forecast, but the aspects of very large temblors might be more predictable, say researchers analyzing the catastrophic quakes that struck Turkey in 2023. A new study by a team led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego researchers describes their test of a “slip-predictable” model that attempts to predict the size of future quakes. They find that the model did a good job explaining the amount of slip due to the 2023 Turkey earthquakes, which occurred on faults known to have produced very large seismic events throughout history. The results produce a few alarming conclusions, namely that the size of the anticipated “Big One” on California’s Southern San Andreas fault is likely getting bigger with time. Another is that there is a chance of a rare “cascading” earthquake that ruptures multiple fault segments, and is even bigger than current models suggest is possible.

Read the study: The 2023 M_w 7.8–7.7 Kahramanmaraş earthquakes were loosely slip-predictable