Earthquake is a natural disaster that causes enormous losses to human society and its prediction is a major scientific challenge widely concerned by the society. However, the mechanism of earthquake is far from clear, and the mainstream view in the international seismology community is that earthquakes are unpredictable. Based on some new concepts and new knowledge developed in physics, this study scrutinizes the incubation and occurrence of earthquake from a novel perspective, and introduces a new understanding of earthquake principle. It is found that the view of earthquake unpredictability originates from the incorrect understanding of both earthquake principle and the self-organized criticality (SOC). That is to say, earthquake is consistent with the laws of SOC, which means it would be impossible to make a medium- or long-term prediction, yet the short-term prediction should still be possible. The preconditions for successful prediction include understanding correctly of earthquake principle, obtaining sufficient characteristic precursory information, and gathering relevant geological data. Traditional seismology is based on the solid continuum mechanics which holds the view that earthquakes are caused by brittle fracture of crustal rocks through the so-called “elastic rebound” mechanism. This point of view is seriously inconsistent with many field observations, cannot account for many seismic phenomena. It therefore cannot obtain and understand the earthquake precursory information correctly, and naturally reach the false conclusion that earthquake is unpredictable. Based on the simple fact that the crust is composed of rock blocks with fault gouges filling in between them, we treat the crust as a discrete system and understand the earthquake incubation process by means of granular physics. The new understanding gained is that the tectonic force propagates through force chains formed by the rock blocks, and the rock blocks move in the manner of stick-slip. Furthermore, by carefully analyzing how the strength of crustal rocks and the distributions of tectonic force vary with depth, we propose that the physical mechanism of earthquake is plastic sliding of rock and a jamming — unjamming transition of rock motion. Our novel theory on the earthquake principle and the earthquake processes can explain many seismological phenomena that could not be understood in terms of traditional seismology, such as the heat-flow paradox and the cause of deep-focus earthquake, etc. Based on this new understanding of earthquake principle, we put forward suggestions on how to obtain the earthquake precursory information correctly, so as to realize the goal of short-term prediction of earthquake.

中文翻译：

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对地震原理的新认识

地震是给人类社会造成巨大损失的自然灾害，其预报是社会广泛关注的重大科学挑战。然而，地震的发生机制还远未搞清楚，国际地震学界的主流观点是地震是不可预测的。本研究基于物理学中发展起来的一些新概念和新知识，从新的角度审视地震的孕育和发生，并引入对地震原理的新认识。研究发现，地震不可预测性观点源于对地震原理和自组织临界（SOC）的错误理解。也就是说，地震是符合 SOC 规律的，也就是说不可能做出中长期的预测，但短期预测应该仍然是可能的。成功预测的前提条件是正确认识地震原理，获得足够的特征前兆信息，收集相关地质资料。传统地震学基于固体连续介质力学，认为地震是地壳岩石通过所谓的“弹性回弹”机制脆性断裂引起的。这种观点与许多野外观测严重不符，不能解释许多地震现象。因此无法正确获取和理解地震前兆信息，自然会得出地震不可预测的错误结论。基于地壳由岩石块组成的简单事实，它们之间充满断层泥，我们将地壳视为一个离散系统，并通过粒子物理学了解地震的孕育过程。得到的新认识是构造力通过岩块形成的力链传播，岩块以粘滑方式运动。此外，通过仔细分析地壳岩石的强度和构造力的分布如何随深度变化，我们提出地震的物理机制是岩石的塑性滑动和岩石运动的干扰-非干扰过渡。我们关于地震原理和地震过程的新理论可以解释许多传统地震学无法理解的地震现象，如热流悖论和深源地震的成因等。基于这种新的认识地震原理，