This question is "Can you predict earthquakes?" The primary motivation for the question "Can you predict earthquakes?" No other natural phenomenon has the tremendous destructive power of a large earthquake, a power which is rivaled only by a large scale war.

1 Modeling earthquakes.- 1.1 Phenomenology.- 1.3 Model building.- 1.4 Prediction.- 1.5 References.- 2 The classical view of earthquakes.- 2.1 A geologist’s view of earthquakes.- 2.2 Seismology and geodesy.- 2.3 Scaling laws for earthquakes.- 2.4 The elastic rebound model and its successors.- 2.5 Nucleation or not?.- 2.6 What is an earthquake? Fracture, slip or both?.- 2.7 Stress: the basic yet unknown quantity.- 2.8 Earthquake energy balance.- 2.9 References.- 3 The Physics of complex systems: appHcations to earthquake.- 3.1 Phase transitions, criticality, and self-similarity.- 3.2 Scale invariance: the analytical approach.- 3.3 Scale invariance: the geometrical approach.- 3.4 Characterizing scale-invariant systems.- 3.5 Modeling scale invariant systems.- 3.6 The origin of power laws and fractality.- 3.7 Problems in applying CA models to earthquakes.- 3.8 Dynamical implications.- 3.9 Statistical implications.- 3.10 Implications for predictability.- 3.11 References.- 4 Time-independenthazard.- 4.1 Seismic Hazard assessment and site effects evaluation at regional scale.- 4.2 USGS and partners: approaches to estimating earthquake probabilities.- 4.3 References.- 5 Time-dependent hazard estimates and forecasts, and their uncertainties.- 5.1 USGS and partners: research on earthquake probabilities.- 5.2 Probabilistic forecasting of seismicity.- 5.3 What is the chance of an earthquake?.- 5.4 References.- 6 Gathering new data.- 6.1 Space geodesy.- 6.2 Paleoseismic data.- 6.3 References.- 7 Seismic risk mitigation.- 7.1 Greek case study.- 7.2 Istanbul case study.- 7.3 References.- 8 Earthquake prediction and public policy.- 8.1 Introduction.- 8.2 Views of social scientists.- 8.3 U.S. earthquake prediction program.- 8.4 Japan’s earthquake prediction program.- 8.5 Pubhc reactions to predictions.- 8.6 Discussion and conclusion.- 8.7 References.- Acknowledgments.- Addresses of principal contributors.

From the reviews of the first edition: "This is a comprehensive and up-to-date book mainly on earthquake prediction, in the practical sense of including policy issues as well as in the sense that ‘once we can predict something, we understand it’. … This book should be read by everybody interested in earthquake prediction and seismic hazard mitigation, expert or not, scientist or administrator. It … makes a good reference. Each chapter contains a comprehensive set of references to recent literature. A CD-ROM with color figures is included." (Christian Goltz, Surveys in Geophysics, Vol. 27, 2006)