Institute of Earthquake Forecasting, China Earthquake Administration (IEF CEA) and Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) co-organized the session “Earthquake natural laboratory and large earthquake forecasting” at the International Conference for the Decade Memory of the Wenchuan Earthquake with the fourth International Conference on Continental Earthquakes and the twelveth General Assembly of Asian Seismological Commission (ASC), held during May 12-14, 2018, in Chengdu, China.

Since the 1960s, many countries and regions in the world have studied earthquake prediction in seismological field experiments, or natural laboratories. By making intensive observations, these efforts have led to a deeper scientific understanding of the earthquake preparation process and of earthquake occurrence. These observations and experiments in natural laboratories have led to new insights, but have also highlighted aspects of earthquake behavior that people do not yet understand. At the end of 2014, to steadily promote progress in the science and technology of seismic monitoring and prediction in China, CEA decided to set up China Earthquake Science Experiment (CESE) in Sichuan and Yunnan. By establishing the shared service platform for the Experimental Field, it was expected gradually secure the sharing of seismic data, attract high-level internal and external seismic research efforts, and promote major seismic studies, including: application of new technologies for earthquake monitoring, pioneering of new approaches for earthquake forecasting, and the development of dynamic models in the Experimental Field, among others.

The session belonged to the theme “Earthquake Dissection”, which was one the four plans of Scientific and Technological Innovation by CEA. It attracted altogether 32 Chinese and overseas experts and scholars, who came from the fields of geology, geophysics, geodesy, and seismology, to contribute their perspectives and insights on the science of earthquakes. There were altogether 16 oral presentations by scholars from IEF, SCEC, University of Trieste, Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth, Institute of Statistical Mathematics, The University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, University of California San Diego, Columbia University, and University of California Los Angeles. There were also 16 poster presentations from institutions of different countries.