Can deep learning algorithms help us prepare for the big event?

Contrary to what you may have seen in Rock’s “San Andreas,” we still can’t predict earthquakes. But there have been recent advances in seismology with the help of artificial intelligence.

Researchers at Stanford University used a deep learning algorithm to detect more earthquakes in cities by filtering out the natural noise and vibrations of urban life. A group at Penn State University used machine learning to analyze the movements of simulated errors in the lab and look for indicators that could help predict an impending earthquake.

I spoke with Eagle Hoxson, a research professor of geophysics at Caltech, who said that these tools can give us a fuller understanding of earthquake patterns. What follows is an edited version of our conversation.

Eagle Huxson. (Courtesy Caltech)

Eagle Hoxson: Existing algorithms detect major events very well, but we miss smaller events. So you can think of larger events as blocks in the wall and smaller events as mortar between bricks. And understanding what happens in a mortar is very important to the general understanding of earthquakes.

Megan McCarty-Carino: What are some of the challenges of using research like Stanford and Penn State to actually apply it to real-world earthquakes?

Hawkson: Often taking this step of applying something that was previously research is very difficult. In part, for earthquakes, we need to analyze all the data [in] In real time, unlike research, you can take our existing data, analyze it, and come up with some very important and interesting results. If you want to implement it in real time, you need to have different specific algorithms and specific data analysis technology to ensure that you get the results as quickly as possible.

McCarty Carino: How difficult is it to study this kind of thing? Like, what makes it so hard to predict?

Hauksson: You can think of an earthquake starting about 6 to 8 miles underground, and the only thing we’re really getting are seismic waves. Some of the missing pieces are that we don’t know exactly what forces are being applied to the fault and make it break. We do not know the exact role of friction. So, these are some of the biggest challenges to understanding how earthquakes happen.

McCarty Carino: If you’re going to bet on things, what do you think: will we ever be able to predict earthquakes one day based on what you see now?

Hoxon: I don’t think so. You can think of it as a barber who has a barbershop. He knows there will be 100 people walking in the door, say, this week. But he can’t tell you how many people will go today or tomorrow. So one of those statistical problems is that it’s, in a way, somewhat random, but we know from our understanding of how the plates move on the Earth’s surface, the tectonic plates, that we’re going to have earthquakes. But when and where things will break, in my opinion, it is impossible to predict.

In 2019, California launched MyShake, an earthquake detection and warning system, with the hope that within seconds residents would be alerted of a potential disaster and could “fall, cover and carry on.” (Chris Delmas/Getty Images) Related links: More insights from Megan McCarty-Carino

Here’s more about two research papers focused on deep learning, one from Penn State on earthquake simulation and one from Stanford University on noise reduction in cities.

Funny story: I once worked at a radio station next to a light railroad, and for the first week or so every time a train passed I thought it was an earthquake for a split second. But in the end, my brain blocked it.

This is basically what a deep learning algorithm does, according to the MIT Technology Review. It makes it possible to separate what is actually a small earthquake from a passing train.

And it so happened that Tuesday was National Richter Scale Day. This, of course, is used to measure the magnitude of an earthquake, or at least that’s what this California kid thought. Apparently, seismologists don’t use it anymore.

They replaced it with something called a torque scale, which, unlike the Richter scale, can measure earthquakes above 8. It’s another thing the “San Andreas” movie got wrong, in addition to scientists predicting earthquakes. But it’s still a great flick. I mean come. Rock and earthquake – it’s a perfect geological mating.

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