THE IASPEI PROCEDURE FOR THE EVALUATION OF EARTHQUAKE PRECURSORS

Full scientific evaluation of proposed earthquake precursors for earth quake prediction is a problem because independent testing is difficult or impossible. To approach this difficulty, and to assess the current state of the art of earthquake prediction research, IASPEI has devise d a peer-review procedure for precursor evaluation. The procedure does not consider predictions of impending earthquakes, but evaluates case histories of proposed precursors for past events according to stated validation criteria, which are specified in terms of guidelines concer ning the hypothesized physical model, data quality, anomaly definition , the rules of association of precursor with earthquake, and statistic al significance. So far, five precursors have been placed on a prelimi nary list of significant earthquake precursors, although none has sati sfied the validation criteria well enough to ensure that their placeme nt is permanent. Exclusion of a precursor from the list does not mean it is useless, but further work is required if it is to become convinc ing. The main objectives in producing the list are to establish a cons ensus on the criteria which a precursor must satisfy to be recognized as validated, and to find case histories which satisfy these criteria. Further nominations of precursor candidates are requested for evaluat ion by the IASPEI procedure.