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Earth Science

Parkfield's unfulfilled promise

Nature volume 419, pages 257–258 (2002)Cite this article

The idea that earthquakes are 'time-predictable' underlies many of today's probabilistic forecasts. In a key test on California's San Andreas fault the concept is found wanting, but the news may not be all bad.

Parkfield's behaviour anchored the concept of time-predictable earthquake recurrence, in which an earthquake strikes when a fault recovers the stress relieved by the previous event1. This means that the larger the earthquake on a fault, the longer the wait until the next one. With each Parkfield quake similar in size, and a constant loading rate, the next would occur in 22 years — in 1988 — with an uncertainty of about 10 years. And so, in 1986 the United States Geological Survey inaugurated a focused experiment to measure the strain accumulation, capture the nucleation of the next rupture, and watch it propagate2. But the earthquake never arrived.

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Figure 1: The San Andreas fault near Cholame, California.

MICHAEL COLLIER

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  1. the United States Geological Survey, Menlo Park, 94025, California, USA

    Ross S. Stein

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  1. Ross S. Stein
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Correspondence to Ross S. Stein.

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Stein, R. Parkfield's unfulfilled promise. Nature 419, 257–258 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/419257a

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