"Earthquake Forecasting on Complex Multiscale Earthquake Fault Systems: Progress and Prospects"
New and fruitful approaches to the problem of understanding the behavior of earthquake fault systems and forecasting the future occurrence of major earthquakes have been developed using techniques arising from statistical mechanics, combined with observations from Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) satellites. Numerical simulations must be used to investigate earthquake fault system dynamics, and to produce simulation data sets that can be studied and related to real data sets such as those produced by InSAR observations. In addition, data-mining methods have been developed that analyze space-time patterns of earthquake occurrence, which can be used to forecast locations ("hotspots") of future large events, typically on decadal time scales. These forecast approaches will be discussed in the context of InSAR observations, a data set that will revolutionize our understanding of earthquake fault system dynamics.