Earthquake prediction entails the specification of the time, place and magnitude of an individual future event. All three of these parameters are poorly known and complicated functions of the relative motions of parts of the Earth's crust and mantle, the rate of strain accumulation in rocks and the strength of those rocks. Even if the processes by which the energy is accumulated and released were completely understood, the imprecise knowledge of the initial conditions, boundary conditions and relevant material properties would make the prediction of a particular seismic event very difficult.
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