![]() “For the first time, I think there’s a moment where we’re really making progress” toward earthquake prediction. “This is an exciting development,” said Maarten de Hoop, a seismologist at Rice University who was not involved with the work. According to Johnson, they indicate that the algorithm can predict the start of a slow slip earthquake to “within a few days - and possibly better.” ![]() The paper has yet to undergo peer review, but outside experts say the results are tantalizing. Now, in a paper posted this week on the scientific preprint site, Johnson and his team report that they’ve tested their algorithm on slow slip quakes in the Pacific Northwest. Two years ago, using pattern-finding algorithms similar to those behind recent advances in image and speech recognition and other forms of artificial intelligence, he and his collaborators successfully predicted temblors in a model laboratory system - a feat that has since been duplicated by researchers in Europe. Johnson’s team is among a handful of groups that are using machine learning to try to demystify earthquake physics and tease out the warning signs of impending quakes. And for the past year and a half, these events have been the focus of a new effort at earthquake prediction by the geophysicist Paul Johnson. ![]() More than a dozen slow slips have been detected by the region’s sprawling network of seismic stations since 2003. These kinds of phantom earthquakes, which occur deeper underground than conventional, fast earthquakes, are known as “slow slips.” They occur roughly once a year in the Pacific Northwest, along a stretch of fault where the Juan de Fuca plate is slowly wedging itself beneath the North American plate. By the time it was done, the southern tip of Vancouver Island had been thrust a centimeter or so closer to the Pacific Ocean.īecause the quake was so spread out in time and space, however, it’s likely that no one felt it. All told, the monthlong earthquake likely released enough energy to register as a magnitude 6. It then briefly reversed course, migrating back across the U.S. The quake began more than 20 miles below the Olympic mountains and, over the course of a few weeks, drifted northwest, reaching Canada’s Vancouver Island. In May of last year, after a 13-month slumber, the ground beneath Washington’s Puget Sound rumbled to life. ![]()
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