Quake Forecast

A couple of years ago, I became convinced that a major earthquake in California was not only inevitable, it was imminent. 

I wrote about it so often that Honey warned me that my posts were getting boring.

Was I wrong?  Well, it hasn’t happened yet, but imminent in geological terms is not the same as immediate – it can, in fact, mean a very long time.

I mention all this because, scientists have just revised their estimates of when the “Big One” might occur.  Their latest prognostications raise the likelihood of an 8.0 or larger quake by about 20%.  They now say the chance of an 8.0 quake occurring within the next 30 years is 7%, up from 4.7% in their 2008 report.

Tom Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center and a co-author of the study, said in a statement that while seismic activity in California has been relatively low over the past century, "We know that tectonic forces are continually tightening the springs of the San Andreas fault system, making big quakes inevitable."