Yes, I think funding has something to do with earthquake prediction. From the point of view of what I do and what I have been pushing for at SCEC, you need to know in the best possible detail what the geometries of all the faults are at all depths. You want to match precisely-relocated earthquakes to these faults...with the focal mechanisms, in 3D. ( we have done a lot of the above, but in the particular area offshore Malibu/Santa Monica Bay the quakes do not seem to define faults....they are more scattered than along surfaces). Because many of the most dangerous faults are blind thrust faults, you cannot really understand them unless you understand the folds they create. So, you have to, where the geology permits, map in 3D all kind of dated stratigraphic surfaces. You then have to do basin modeling to see how much of the deformation seen in the folded layers and in GPS is due to sediment compaction (a big effect!) and to loading of the crust by sediment deposition or growing mountains. Then, in real-time you need to relate small earthquakes to individual faults, and in near real time model the GPS to see how it relates to motions on the faults. Then, do that for 20 years and see if it gets you anywhere, short term prediction-wise. Most of this is not being done in a large-scale comprehensive fashion...with the SCEC community models being the closest...on the right track, but not there.

The oil industry has made a LOT of seismic reflection data available...but it is not useable by people like me to map faults until the old 9-track tapes have been converted to modern formats. We use these data to map faults from the seafloor (or onshore surface) to depths as deep as 6 or 8 km (depending on geology and data quality). The USGS has been doing some of this, but does not have enough money....I am using now (today...and the last couple of months) some of the data that they have had converted. To just get the final product (migrated stacks) may not be terribly expensive...but has already chewed through 100s of k $. To get the raw recorded data converted is getting into real money...for the 2 companies offering to donate west coast data, there may be 100,000 or much more 9 track tapes. If these can be converted for $10/tape, is $1 million. This should be done on selective basis.

There is a mid-1970s data set that is not being donated....We would have used this data set to map active faults immediately offshore of Santa Monica...including the Santa Monica fault, the Malibu Coast fault, and the various small splays of the Palos Verdes fault...as well as blind faults and stratigrapy. This data set is unique because it comes in so close to shore. The oil company that recorded it actually had it printed out, sitting on a desk, to send to us (for free) and then found out that it had been sold to a data vendor. I tried hard to get the data vendor to donate the use of the data on a proprietary basis, but finally gave up. I think if I came up with $40 k they would do this....but I won't even try to get $40 k for this because I really need $40 k for my own salary, overhead, benefits, student salary...just to keep being paid at my current 50% rate. Plus, I don't think $40 k for this is fundable. But, we know essentially nothing/zip/nada about the 3D geometry of the Santa Monica fault from the coast at Potrero Canyon in Santa Monica/Pacific Palisades for about 10 km west of there...before there is some rather marginal data for another 10 km west (then I have good data west of there). So....is it worth $40 k for data and $60 k for a pending proposal=$100 k to know how long and continuous the Santa Monica fault is? I can't evaluate this against limited funds and non-limited things that could be done with the funds....but we are comparing this to up to $250 billion quakes with 1000s of fatalities...

Oh, yeah....when I have no funding at all I tend not to work as hard...and when I have a choice of funding, I work in the area where I have funding....so will be working to lower the earthquake risk to Istanbul for parts of the next 3 years, rather than to California.
Chris