Dispelling earthquake myths, earthquakes cannot be predicted

BAKERSFIELD, Calif (KGET) — More than 400 aftershocks have rattled Kern County since the Mettler earthquake first struck Tuesday night. That includes about 30 temblors with magnitudes of 3 and 4.

Multiple posts floating around social media predict a big earthquake in Southern California this weekend.

Scientists told 17 News predictions like that are unreliable because no one has developed a provable way of forecasting earthquakes.

The social media post from “Free Earthquake Prediction,” depicts two graphs, the post itself reads, “Warning: a 6.1 to 6.5 magnitude earthquake is likely in Southern California on August 10th, 2024.”

CSUB professor William Krugh says scientists around the globe have been working on predicting short-term earthquakes, but that goal is elusive, “We haven’t been able to do it, particularly for short-term earthquake events, and in general what we do, is we do forecasting.”

Forecasting looks at the probability that earthquakes and aftershocks will happen, “They tend to occur over a certain rate and a length of time for different magnitude earthquakes,” Krugh said. “So we can use that information to get some forecasting on what the probability of having different magnitude aftershocks are going to be following an earthquake event.”

Prediction and forecasting for earthquakes in the long term is still near impossible for scientists to do.

“A lot of the predictions that you get, following a big event like this, they need to have clear evidence-based in science, provide the documentation for that, and show that they’re being tested with different earthquake scenarios,” Krugh said.

Krugh also said that the aftershocks from this week’s earthquake could continue into next year, varying in magnitude and becoming less frequent as we get further from the original earthquake.

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