Advances in Earthquake Prediction: Research and Risk Mitigation [Hardcover]

The special natural conditions in Iceland as well as high level technology, were the basis for multidisciplinary and multinational cooperation for studying crustal processes, especially processes ahead of large earthquakes. This work leads to new innovative results and real time warnings which are described in?the book. The results obtained in Iceland are of significance for earthquake prediction research worldwide.

Using the special natural conditions in Iceland as a test area , this book describes the major efforts in earthquake prediction research worldwide. The results obtained in Iceland are of significance for earthquake prediction research around the world.

The prediction of earthquakes is becoming more and more important and for almost twenty years the earthquake prone area of South Iceland has been a major research target in the framework of an international project on earthquake risk mitigation.

Geodynamically, Iceland is the most active region of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR), where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are frequent and the boundary conditions related to plate tectonics are relatively simple. High quality monitoring networks were therefore installed there in the last few years and much data was collected before and after two big earthquakes in 2000. The main objective of the first large scale cooperation on the SIL project in 1988 was to construct an automatic seismic evaluation system to make use of information which is carried almost continuously by microearthquakes from the earthquake zone. Such small earthquakes, down to magnitude zero, provide the most detailed space-time information of active faults, stresses, fracture criticality and stability in the crust. More projects followed, with a broader observational basis, to study the physics of the tectonic processes.

Professor Ragnar Stef?nsson is preeminently qualified to write this book since he initiated and led the build uplC¶