Can past earthquake records help predict future ones? You gather decades of earthquake data for the Los Angeles basin from the UC Berkeley database. Then you sort each quake by magnitude and year.
Graphs of individual years show no clear pattern. When you group the data into 5-year, 10-year, and 20-year spans, a trend appears. A rise in low-magnitude earthquakes often comes before a rise in higher-magnitude ones.
The pattern suggests a general time window for larger quakes, but not a precise date or size. The relationship is a broad trend, not an exact prediction tool.
Hypothesis
The hypothesis is that by looking at the patterns of the past, we can develop mathematical models for future prediction.
Graphs of individual years show no clear pattern in earthquake data — but when you group decades of records into 5-year, 10-year, and 20-year spans, something emerges. A rise in low-magnitude earthquakes often comes before a rise in higher-magnitude ones. That’s a correlation: two measurements moving together in a trackable pattern. It suggests a general time window for larger quakes, but it is a broad trend, not an exact prediction tool.
Graphs of individual earthquake years show no clear pattern — the data looks like noise. When you group it into 5-year, 10-year, and 20-year spans, something changes. A trend appears in the visualization that was invisible before, showing how the choice of time scale shapes what you can see in a chart.
Seismologists study how the ground shakes by looking at records of past earthquakes. In this project, you gather earthquake information and analyze the data for repeatable patterns in how the ground has moved over many years.
Method & Materials
You will gather earthquake information, transfer data into mathematical tables, create graphs, and analyze the data for repeatable patterns.
You will need earthquake information, mathematical tables, spreadsheets, and graphs.
MEL Math — hands-on math experiment kits delivered monthly — makes abstract concepts tangible. (Affiliate link)
After analyzing the data, it appears that the increase in lower intensity earthquakes does correlate with a rise in greater intensity earthquakes, but only within a general time frame.
Why do this project?
This science project is unique because it looks at the patterns of the past to see if we can predict future earthquakes.
Also Consider
Experiment variations to consider include looking at different geographical areas and different time frames.
Full project details
Additional information and source material for this project are available below.
