There's a great set of research coming from Alexis Cartwright Taylor's lab showing that it's quite possible that large fractions of fracture mechanics informati

There's a great set of research coming from Alexis Cartwright Taylor's lab showing that it's quite possible that large fractions of fracture mechanics information is not transmitted acoustically. For example grain boundary rotations and change the stress field without releasing acoustic energy as they are typically elastic. This would indicate that even the very idea of what seismology has been the last 60 years, acoustic detection of earthquakes, does not produce enough information for understanding the earthquake process and thus prediction would not be possible using only data from seismometers. Of course, Gutenberg Richter b value people will tell you that's not true. But they seem to be a dying breed.