The following additions to the 2017 model were tested intermittently in 2017, and were implemented in Davidson’s personal risk-map making in December 2017. There are permanent parts of the risk maps posted to The Disaster Prediction App and twitter, while the official statistics for the model (alone) can still be found on the stats page.
- Traditional Foreshock Signatures are now used; successfully used to predict a M7.0 in the Loyalty Islands on November 19, 2017. On the statistics page you can see this event listed as successful for Davidson’s personal statistics but not for the model, since no Blot Echoes or atmospheric signals indicated the region be on alert. Instead four M6 events struck the region in three days.
- Blot Echo Risk Time Extension. After failing to have an alert for a M7.3 in Iran/Iraq on November 11, 2017, and a M6.6 in Tajikistan a year earlier, a 4-day Blot Echo risk period (as opposed to the 3-day risk period proposed in the original model) was implemented for the Middle East/SE Asia fault systems. This change IS being applied to both Davidson’s risk-maps and the model statistics.
- Blot Echo Depth Re-Assessment. Transition zone earthquakes tend to be present before many large events but it is the Low-Velocity Zone tremors that really signal the potential for lithospheric breaks. The shallower Blot Echoes are now ultimately more important than those at the transition zone.