A Strategy for Short-Term Earthquake Forecasting Based on Combined Ground and Space-Based Observations

No standard methodologies regarding the short-term (hours, days, few weeks) forecasting of earthquakes have been widely adopted so far. However, promising approaches from ground-based (e.g. foreshocks) and space-based (e.g. thermal anomalies) observations have been described. We propose to apply a multidisciplinary strategy by performing real-time experiments towards the identification of space-time windows having increased probability beyond chance for the occurrence of strong earthquakes (M>5.5). This is a new collaborative study which will continue the best practices achieved from other projects such as the EU-FP7 PRE-EARTHQUAKE and the ongoing ISSI project LAICa. The test region covers the entire Greece which is of the highest seismicity all over western Eurasia, while closer attention will be given to the Corinth Rift (Central Greece) which is an asymmetric half-graben of high seismicity opening rapidly with geodetic extension rates up to about 15mmyr-1. Ground-based observations will mainly include seismicity, magnetometers and radon measurements while space observations will include the ones that may provide thermal anomalies, GPS and TEC. The strategy will include the development of a system operating in real-time basis with strong tools and protocols for the collection, archiving and evaluation of the different types of data. The software part of the system may incorporate three basic interfaces implemented via open source technology: (1) The up-streaming software interface for the collection and archiving of data; (2) The backend real-time software interface incorporating all the available models; (3) The frontend WEBGIS software interface that will allow for data representation and mapping. The establishment of some certain rules for issuing non-public seismic alerts is needed. Therefore, in this paper we will also discuss the significance of the proposed work for the issues of earthquake forecasting/prediction statements and what critical new observations and measurements should be pursued to enable models to be falsifiable, following established scientific methodologies.