USGS Hosting Free Public Lecture on Earthquake Forecasting

Photo courtesy of USGS

By Bay City News

A free public lecture on forecasting California earthquakes is being held May 21 in Menlo Park, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The lecture titled Breaking Badly: Forecasting California Earthquakes will be held at 7 p.m. at the USGS’s Menlo Park campus at 345 Middlefield Road. The USGS website says the agency is the federal source for earth science.

USGS officials said scientists are currently unable to predict thetime, location and size of earthquakes.

Geologists have records of California earthquakes that go back more than 150 years and geologists have extended the history of earthquake faults to about 1,000 years by digging trenches.

Scientists have learned that it’s possible for multiple geologic faults to link up in an earthquake and that one earthquake can trigger another, USGS officials said.

Scientists are using all this information to help create better earthquake forecasting models and help determine what the effects of earthquakes will be on California, according to the USGS.