Kinemetrics seismograph used by U.S. Department of the Interior.
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Yesterday, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck L'Aquila, Italy, killing more than 150 people, injuring some 1,000, and leaving thousands of people homeless. Soon after the deadly temblor hit, news outlets including Time magazine, Reuters, and The New York Times reported Italian authorities had previously removed from the Internet a warning that a big quake was imminent. The prediction had been posted weeks earlier by a techician at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Abruzzi, Italy.*
The technician, Giampaolo Giuliani, who could not be reached for comment, had predicted that a massive earthquake would strike based on measurements of radon emissions. Skeptical Italian officials--believing that he was sowing unwarranted panic—publicly refuted the warnings and admonished Giuliani in court.
Did authorities err in contradicting Giuliani's prediction? Could lives have been saved had they heeded the warning?
"I am skeptical of the claim," says Shawn Larsen, a geophysicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. "Radon has been claimed to be a precursor of earthquakes for some time, since the late 70s. However, there has been no concrete evidence that it is indeed a predictor of earthquakes."
According to John Rundle, director of the California Institute for Hazard Research, a joint program between different University of California (U.C.) schools, the frequent release of that gas results in far too many false alarms to make the system trustworthy. Radon has been associated with seismic events, and earthquakes can cause the release of radon and other ground gases. The problem is, he says, many phenomena other than large earthquakes also result in radon release, including rainfall and atmospheric pressure changes.
"It has too many false positives to be useful," says Rundle, a professor of physics, geology and engineering at U.C. Davis. ""We actually do forecasting but we do that using probabilities. We can't say that an earthquake is going to happen at this point in time and space."
Rundle is an expert in forecasting quake probability over a range of time, and even published a map in 2006 identifying the spot of yesterday's earthquake as a likely target for a magnitude 7.0 or greater earthquake. That forecast identifies a 10-year-span rather than a single day or time when an earthquake might occur.
In fact, no current technique can accurately predict the timing of an earthquake more narrowly, Rundle says. For instance, in 1983 the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) noticed that magnitude 6.0 earthquakes struck Parkfield, Calif., every 30 years or so. After observing the fault, the USGS predicted that another earthquake would strike between 1988 and 1993. There was another earthquake at Parkfield—but not until 2004.
The only technique that shows the promise of one day predicting earthquakes more precisely, according to both Rundle and Larsen, involves measuring electromagnetic (EM) radiation released by quartz veins compressing under the stress that precedes earthquakes. But they note that technique remains years away from practical use, because scientists still have problems separating the electromagnetic (EM) radiation released by the quartz from EM radiation generated by other nearby sources.
The bottom line, according to Larsen and Rundle: If anything, Giuliani made a lucky guess.
"The ability to predict an earthquake would be tantamount to saying what the weather is going to be like in this city next November," Larsen says. "Maybe someone will find something in the future, but so far, that has not happened."
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18 Comments
Add CommentThe real question isn't whether or not this guy made an accurate prediction. For any event like this, if you look hard enough you'll find someone who predicted it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe question to ask is, whether this guy accurate predicted this event without having also predicted a great many events that did not happen. If this was his weekly prediction, I'm not impressed. If he's been studying the area for 30 years and this is the first time he was convinced an earthquake was about to happen -- maybe we should listen a bit closer.
jim berkland has a good percentage of predicting earthquakes. For a long time. USGS fired him.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjim berkland has a good percentage of predicting earthquakes. For a long time. USGS fired him.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEveryone admits radon releases can signal earthquakes, the problem being that other things also cause radon release. So why can't Giuliani have eliminated the common other factors and thereby come up with an accurate prediction? Larson and Rundle don't offer anything to back up their pooh-poohing. The fact is Giuliani predicted it, using a method that is known to work but which historically has too many false positives to be reliable. It's not like he used chicken entrails. The onus is on Larson and Rundle to prove Giuliani wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the main problem is, outside of places where earthquakes occur with extreme frequency (IE the san andreas fault or japan), the vast majority of the earth's seismic hotspots are covered by structures that are thoroughly inadequate for resisting inevitable quakes. It's especially worrisome when buildings such as hospitals or schools are built without future-proofing in mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr. Giuliani is not a scientist or a seismologist. He is just a graduate of a technical high school.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGioacchino Giuliani is not a researcher nor a scientist, he is a lab technician (you can look at his page at the Gran Sasso labs website: http://www.lngs.infn.it/lngs_infn/index.htm?mainRecord=/lngs_infn/newphonebook/addressbook/index.php) and developed his theories about earthquake prediction together with his brother (who is not a geologist or anything similar) in his spare time from work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe important scientific theories can indeed be formulated outside an accademic environment, but I'm skeptical that nowadays it is possible to make such important advancements in earthquake prediction without having strong spacialistic formation, a lot of fundings, and a very capable team of people working with you... but that's my opinion
It seems that the Italian government should prosecute Giuliani for making false statements that were intended to cause widespread panic, numerous injuries, and deaths. That should deter anyone including individuals with exceptional credentials and lots of money from making predictions of disasters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe is not graduate, but has a 40 years experience in instrumentals, in laboratories such as Gran Sasso (cosmic particels research) and Campo Imperatore astronomic observer , I think he can easily built radon detectors and obtain datas. I don't know about the theory model and the data's interpretasions, the research beguns in collaboration togheter with a russian physician and someone told to me that the research is also interesting planet movements and gravity effects. He put his own datas online and testimonials verify about the validity of his forecasts. Take a look to his own site www.chiocciolandia.it in the "documentazione" section
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe is not graduate, but has a 40 years experience in instrumentals, in laboratories such as Gran Sasso (cosmic particels research) and Campo Imperatore astronomic observer , I think he can easily built radon detectors and obtain datas. I don't know about the theory model and the data's interpretasions, the research beguns in collaboration togheter with a russian physician and someone told to me that the research is also interesting planet movements and gravity effects. He put his own datas online and testimonials verify about the validity of his forecasts. Take a look to his own site www.chiocciolandia.it in the "documentazione" section
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe point folks. He was right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCredentials or not the guy deserves an apology. PUBLICLY and they need to give him credit on the website.
The point folks. He was right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCredentials or not the guy deserves an apology. PUBLICLY and they need to give him credit on the website.
Today at 3:34 p.m., a person calling himself "Giovani" declared ion a post that Giampaolo Giovani "put his own datas online and testimonials verify about the validity of his forecasts. Take a look to his own site www.chiocciolandia.it in the 'documentazione' section." I did so, but there is nothing there but an apparently official notice in red lettering as follows: "Because of the interpretations you make from pure indicative diagrams of a search in course (it constitutes) useless phenomena of alarmist nature (and we are) forced to remove the links present in the homepage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDiffidiamo anyone to communicate voices not to veritiere to the population." Would Giovani please post the verifications to which he refers?
I visited the website you advised today but permission has been denied to access his documentation. Would you kindly post same so that I also may see it? Thank you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell Grad or not Mr. Giuliani was right on the nose. I am tired of Scientists claiming they have cornered the intellectual priorities market. I have had to work around people who are experts in one area such as safety etc. I have seen them ignore warnings from lesser qualified people resulting in death and destruction. Radon gas is a precursor to most earthquakes. It is poorly understood like most seismology but is a true factor in earthquake prediction. The USGS still monitors gas along fault lines and it rises eyebrows when levels are increase. So facts. 1. Mr. Giuliani made a very accurate prediction that proved true. 2. Radon gas levels were increased. 3. There are lots of PhDs that are very jealous and judgmental. 4. Someone should pat the guy on the back and tell him good guess and thanks for the warning. Then tell the world sorry we did not do more and sorry this science is still so new and poorly understood. lets learn from this event.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisre
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[url=http://tvview.tv.ohost.de/index.html]matt quinn[/url] <a href="http://tvview.tv.ohost.de/index.html">matt quinn</a>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is impossible to access his "documentazione" section. Why would this be?
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