NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

Results of the first-ever earthquake prediction contest are in, and they confirm that picking future epicenters isn't anybody's guess. Of the entrants, a UC Davis team that includes SFI External Professor John Rundle was the most accurate in picking the locations of the earthquakes.

Prediction models offer an array of techniques to forecast earthquakes. To determine which are most accurate, the Southern California Earthquake Centre invited teams in 2005 to predict where earthquakes 4.95 or greater would strike between 2006 and 2010. Teams submitted probabilities for tremors in an 8,000-square grid stretching across California.

Rundle, who directs the University of California's hazard research program at UC Davis, was on the team that pinpointed locations best, picking 17 of the 22 squares that were hit. 

Read the UC Davis news article (September 2011)

Read the PNAS paper (September 26, 2011)