Can earthquakes be predicted?

Can earthquakes be predicted?

Tom Jordan (Director, Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC)) gives expert video advice on: What is the probability of a severe earthquake striking a major city?; Where do earthquakes most often occur?; What are the most common earthquake myths? and more...

Whether earthquakes can be predicted is a very difficult question for we seismologists to answer. Certainly, there are things that we can predict about earthquakes. For example, we know where earthquakes are going to occur: primarily on large geologic faults. We know how big those earthquakes might be. For example, on the San Andreas Fault here in California, we know earthquakes can be as large as magnitude 8. The difficulty is that we cannot predict when large earthquakes will occur with any kind of reliability or precision needed to warn communities of impending disasters.