A magnitude 7.8 quake just hit Japan, just off shore, and it may result in tsunamis in Alaska. But it makes me wonder--is this guy on to something, or was he just lucky?

That's....interesting...

I look forward to reports from other seismoligists using 20-20 hind-sight as they discuss this gentlmans prediction. I sincerely hope that it's not dismissed out of hand.

At the least, his methods deserve more study. As the old saying goes, "Once is an accident, twice is a coincedence, three times is a conspiracy."

Uh...no. He predicted the earthquake would hit the Tokyo Metro area, it hit Hokkaido, which is a different island than the island of Honshu where Tokyo is located. The article is dated Monday, 9/15 and he said the earthquake would occur on Tuesday or Wednesday of that week. So he is off by 500 miles or more of distance and 8-9 days of time.

Not a very good prediction to me.

Not a perfect prediction, but not a bad one, either. Richter 7+ quakes don't hit Japan every week, or even every year.

I didn't say it was a good prediction. I said it warrented further study.

If this man did see something on his instruments which told him an earthquake was coming, his only error lay in trying to be too precise. Quite frankly, as Rand pointed out, a week and 500 miles isn't bad shooting considering that noone else in the world that I know of even had a hint that a "big one" was on its way.

By the same token, he may simply have gotten lucky. Either way, it needs to be looked at as if his methods do work, even to the limited extent of being off by a week and 500 miles, they would be very useful.

I can think of only one instance where someone got closer with an earthquake prediction.

When I was an undergrad, working at my alma mater in Sacramento for the money to pay for tuition, books and beer (no, not in that order, what do you think I was, a geek?), my job one day required me to help hang a picture in some bigshot's office.

It wasn't really a two-person job, so I wound up handing tools to my boss while he did the job, and he inadvertently drove one of the fasteners right into a wall stud. So in jest I told the bigshot that when The Big One hit her picture wouldn't fall.

That was the day of the Loma Prieta earthquake.

I don't joke about earthquakes anymore. I must use this power only for good, or at least for substantial monetary compensation.

Oh, BTW -- the picture didn't fall.

There was a Seismologist who, a few days or so before Loma Prieta, who was spinning a disaster scenario at some conference and used as his hypothetical as a 7.0 during Game 3 of the World Series.

It got a bit of play in the press, but he spent a few weeks after that begging the press to explain that he had merely guessed.

Sorry, but this doesn't strike me as a breakthrough.

1. Earthquake occurred 770 km (480 miles) NNE of Tokyo (source: USGS).
2. Los Angeles coordinates: 34° N, 118° W (approx).
3. San Francisco coordinates: 37° N, 122° W (approx).
4. Distance between these points: 556 km (345 mi) (source: http://www.argray.org/).

So if somebody predicted the Big One for LA, and it hit outside the time window and over a hundred miles north of San Francisco, how useful would that be?

One more reason that tornadoes are better than earthquakes -- we can see them coming. ;)

Look at it this way: If the guy had said "There's going to be a mag 7+ earthquake in Japan within the next month" Everyone would be saying how amazing his prediction was. His only mistake was trying to be too precise. Even a warning that there was going to be large earthquake somewhere in the world in the next four-six weeks would be a breakthrough. If you lived in an earthquake zone, you know to take precautions.

But that's really not the point. If he's got something, it needs to be looked at by many scientists. With work, if he actually has something, it might be possible to refine it into something which _can_ predict with the precision he attempted to apply this time.