TOKYO – Japanese and international researchers will get a chance to put their earthquake predicting skills to the test in 2009, when Tokyo University’s Earthquake Research Institute holds a competition to see who can most accurately predict seismological activity.

The contest is aimed at providing in-depth analysis of which earthquake forecasting methods yield the most accurate results, which organizers hope will help improve earthquake forecasting and lead to a better understanding of the complex mechanisms of the phenomenon.

Contestants will be able to freely access earthquake data that the organizers have prepared, and a computer system set up for earthquake research will be available for the contest.

The computers allow more than 10 methods for calculating quake data to be used simultaneously. Researchers will be asked to calculate the possibility of an earthquake striking, and its scale, in the next five years.

Based on these calculations, they will predict, for example, in which areas they think there is at least a 20 percent possibility that a quake measuring more than 6 on the Richter scale will strike.

Whoever is judged as having the best method of correctly predicting quakes will be named the winner.

The researchers will be expected to show off their skills in combining various theories on earthquakes and research in an effort to emerge victorious.