Forecasting earthquake aftershock locations with AI-assisted science
This seems like interesting research, especially since I live in Japan now, where earthquakes are really common.
But a look at the database used for the earthquake data seemed to suggest inadequate data. The database contains information on 178 earthquakes as of Aug 14, 2018. Most of the data comes from 1960s and later. It also contains earthquakes with varying magnitudes from 4+ to 9+, but given that earthquake magnitudes are logarithmic, we should expect a lot more 4+ earthquakes compared to 5+, and so on up the scale. Specifically, being in Japan, I know we have a lot of 4+ and 5+ earthquakes in recent years, but they are not reflected in the database. It therefore seems the database may have some inherent data bias, which is obviously not good since any bias in the data will be reflected in the model learnt from it.
So while I applaud the idea, I think there can be improvement to the actual research method (specifically, the data selected). Maybe they should work closer with the Japan Meteorological Agency to obtain a more comprehensive set of earthquake data around Japan, for a geographically limited model first. This can then be expanded to cover other regions in the world where the local authorities have good systems in place to capture and record such data.
This seems like interesting research, especially since I live in Japan now, where earthquakes are really common.
But a look at the database used for the earthquake data seemed to suggest inadequate data. The database contains information on 178 earthquakes as of Aug 14, 2018. Most of the data comes from 1960s and later. It also contains earthquakes with varying magnitudes from 4+ to 9+, but given that earthquake magnitudes are logarithmic, we should expect a lot more 4+ earthquakes compared to 5+, and so on up the scale. Specifically, being in Japan, I know we have a lot of 4+ and 5+ earthquakes in recent years, but they are not reflected in the database. It therefore seems the database may have some inherent data bias, which is obviously not good since any bias in the data will be reflected in the model learnt from it.
So while I applaud the idea, I think there can be improvement to the actual research method (specifically, the data selected). Maybe they should work closer with the Japan Meteorological Agency to obtain a more comprehensive set of earthquake data around Japan, for a geographically limited model first. This can then be expanded to cover other regions in the world where the local authorities have good systems in place to capture and record such data.
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