'Earthquake prediction is still far off'

The paper -- whose publication coincides with the aftermath of the quake that struck Pakistan and India, killing tens of thousands of people -- is based on a long-term project in California.

Scientists sowed a 40-kilometer (25-mile) part of the notorious San Andreas fault, located at the city of Parkfield, with scores of seismic sensors to monitor earth rumbles and movement in real time.

But an earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale struck that region on September 28, 2004 without any warning. There was not the slightest hint of a buildup of strain or impending landslip.

Parkfield had long been fingered as a good testbed for earthquake physics as it had experienced seven big quakes since 1857, and these events were quite evenly spaced apart.

Because of that, the US Geological Survey (USGS) felt confident enough in 1985 to predict that a 6.0 quake would occur in Parkfield before 1993.