US scientists unveil new quake tracking system

In a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, researchers revealed a method, which combines geological records with GPS tracking to help assess earthquake risk.

"This is the most realistic model to date," said Kaj Johnson, a geophysicist from the University of Indiana. "This is something that people have been asking for years now - it's the next step."

Earthquake probability assessment requires accurate determination of how fast a fault moves. Prior to the advent of GPS technology, scientists relied solely on paleoseimology, a complex method of digging trenches along fault lines and mapping the signatures of past earthquakes over thousands of years.