Journal of Physics of the Earth
Online ISSN : 1884-2305
Print ISSN : 0022-3743
ISSN-L : 0022-3743
Changes of Strain before Earthquakes : The Possibility of Routine Monitoring of Both Long-Term and Short-Term Precursors
Stuart CrampinSergei V. Zatsepin
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1997 Volume 45 Issue 1 Pages 41-66

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Abstract
Earthquakes are extraordinarily complicated phenomena and deterministic prediction of the magnitude, time and place of large earthquakes is likely to be intrinsically impossible. A more simple phenomenon, the build up of deformation which leads to the earthquake, can be monitored by the behaviour of seismic shear waves, and this offers a way of forecasting the proximity of large earthquakes. Recent results, including field observations of shear waves before earthquakes, laboratory experiments with stress cells, and theoretical modelling of microscale deformation, demonstrate that long-term precursory build-up of deformation can be monitored for some years before a large earthquake. There may even be the possibility of identifying short-term precursors a few hours or days before the earthquake. This paper suggests that reliable routine earthquake forecasting would require controlled seismic experiments between a specific pattern of deep wells.
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