Fundamentals of earthquake prediction / Основы предсказания землетрясений

Seismology has been defined as “the science based on data called seismograms” (Aki and Richards, 1980). The definition misses the urgency of human suffering caused by the complex phenomena called earthquakes. It also tends to restrict membership of our club to people who know their way around seismograms, rather than to those who make use of other kinds of input such as theoretical physics, fault displacements, or time series of seismic events. Actually seismograms tell us far less about earthquakes than we need to know. They are like unreliable couriers sent abroad with a long complicated message: By the time they get to their destination they tell us all about the incidents along the way but the original message has been forgotten.<...>