October 29, 2021

Abstract:

The history of research on the possibility of short-term forecasting of earthquakes is one of the most dramatic in the history of modern science. Outbursts of optimism and disappointment, conflicts reaching outright hostility, and bans on publications have accompanied this line of research until the last few years. In recent years, the hypothesis that the seismic process obeys the laws of self-organized criticality has prevailed in seismology, according to which the development of any inhomogeneity can bring the system to a critical state, and since the appearance and distribution of inhomogeneities is chaotic, it is impossible to predict which of them will lead to an earthquake.

On the other hand, in the last two decades there has been a growing body of experimental data (in particular, measurements on satellite), showing with a high degree of confidence that the observed anomalies of various environmental parameters are short-term precursors of earthquakes. These results joined the ranks of the fans of determinism, who argued that predictions were possible based on data on earthquake precursors.

Our studies allowed us to make the "convergence" of both approaches, inscribing a cascade of precursor anomalies in the concept of a synergistic representation of the earthquake preparation process as an open nonlinear system with attenuation, subject to external influence. In addition, a physical mechanism was found that connects purely seismological variations in the preparation zone with atmospheric phenomena that cause the generation of earthquakes. One of such external influences should be considered slow tectonic waves, theoretical calculations of the propagation of which allow predicting the critical areas of preparation for future earthquakes on our planet with a lead time of 2 months.