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Volume 13, Issue 3 (March 2026), Pages: 21-32
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Original Research Paper
Prediction of large-scale earthquakes using precursor earthquakes: A regression study
Author(s):
Yu-Fan Fu, Zhong-Wei Zhang, Xin-Yue Yang, Shu Yuan *
Affiliation(s):
College of Resources, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China
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* Corresponding Author.
Corresponding author's ORCID profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6565-6914
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2026.03.003
Abstract
Earthquake prediction remains a major challenge in seismology, and no reliable method has yet been established. Previous studies suggest that large earthquakes (triggered earthquakes, TDEs) are often preceded by smaller events (triggering earthquakes, TGEs), but their quantitative relationship is unclear. In this study, we developed a prediction method based on four quadratic regression equations linking magnitude and distance between TGEs and TDEs, and three linear regression equations linking magnitude and time interval. The method was tested on 87 large earthquakes (M ≥ 6.6) from the past 100 years, including the 2023 Turkey (M7.8) and 2025 Myanmar (M7.7) events. Results show that 89% of epicenters and 63% of occurrence times were successfully predicted. For earthquakes of M ≥ 9.0 and those causing major casualties, the model achieved an accuracy within 100 km and 3 days, outperforming most existing approaches. Based on these results, we also propose a prediction for a future earthquake in Japan.
© 2026 The Authors. Published by IASE.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Keywords
Earthquake prediction, Triggering earthquakes, Triggered earthquakes, Regression model, Seismology
Article history
Received 22 April 2025, Received in revised form 5 January 2026, Accepted 27 February 2026
Funding
This work was supported by the Sichuan Province Youth Science and Technology Innovation Team (20CXTD0062) to SY and the Applied Basic Research Program of Sichuan Province (2020YJ0410) to ZWZ.
Acknowledgment
No Acknowledgment.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Citation:
Fu YF, Zhang ZW, Yang XY, and Yuan S (2026). Prediction of large-scale earthquakes using precursor earthquakes: A regression study. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 13(3): 21-32
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Supplementary files
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