LONDON (Reuters) - For Californians, getting the latest earthquake forecast will now be as easy as checking the weather.
They simply have to look on the Internet.
Scientists have developed a computer model, available on
"It is a daily forecast map of earthquakes, updated hourly," said Matthew Gerstenberger, a seismologist at the US Geological Survey in Pasadena, California.
The map doesn't predict big earthquakes but calculates whether the region will experience tremors severe enough to break windows or crack plaster.
"The probabilities are generally low," said Gerstenberger, who discussed his work in the science journal Nature.
Gerstenberger and his colleagues believe their forecasting model will be useful for city managers, people who make decisions about emergency planning, operators of large facilities, as well as members of the public.
The model uses knowledge of the behavior of fault lines in California and factors in effects from recent earthquakes in the area.
"It is dominated by aftershock information, earthquake clustering information," he said.
"It is not an earthquake prediction tool. We are not saying yes, there will be an earthquake or no, there won't be an earthquake. It deals with lower probability events."
The map gives details about California but the researchers said it could be used for forecasting in other earthquake-prone areas of the world.
"There is no reason it needs to be limited to California. It is purely a statistical model driven by earthquake data -- where, when and how big they are," said Gerstenberger.
Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited.
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