Retrospective Study on the Predictability of Pattern Informatics to the Wenchuan M8.0 and Yutian M7.3 Earthquakes

Two large earthquakes occurred in the western part of China in 2008, one of them being the Yutian (35.6°N, 81.6°E) M7.3 earthquake that occurred on March 21 (BJT) and the other the Wenchuan (31.0°N, 103.4°E) M8.0 earthquake that occurred on May 12 (BJT). In this paper, the West Continental China (included in 20.0°–50.0°N, 70.0°–110.0°E region) was the study region for verifyong the predictability of the pattern informatics (PI) method using the receiver-operating characteristic curve (ROC) test and R score test. Different forecasting maps with different calculating parameters were obtained. The calculating parameters were the grid size Δx, base time t _b, reference interval t _b to t ₁, change interval t ₁ to t ₂, and forecasting interval t ₂ to t ₃. In this paper, the base time t _b fixed to June 1, 1971, the ending forecast time t ₃ fixed to June 1, 2008, and the forecasting interval t ₂ to t ₃ changed from 1 to 10 years, and the grid sizes were chosen as 1° × 1° and 2° × 2°, respectively. The results show that the PI method could forecast the Yutian M7.3 and Wenchuan M8.0 earthquakes only using suitable parameters. Comparing the forecast results of grid sizes 1° × 1° and 2° × 2°, the models with 2° × 2° grids were better. Comparing the forecast results with different forecasting windows from 1 to 10 years, the models with forecasting windows of 4–8 years were better using the ROC test, and the models with forecasting windows of 7–10 years were better using the R score test. The forecast efficiency of the model with a grid size of 2° × 2° and forecast window of 8 years was the best one using either the ROC test or the R score test.