earthquake prediction

Instances of regular intervals between earthquakes of similar magnitudes have been noted in other places, including Hawaii, but these are the exception, not the rule. Far more often, recurrence intervals are given as averages with large margins of error. For areas prone to large earthquakes, these intervals can be on the scale of hundreds of years, with uncertainty bars that also span hundreds of years. Clearly, this method of forecasting is far from an exact science.  Tom Heaton, a geophysicist at Caltech and a former…