Grid Computing Yields Earthquake Forecast

The physical forces that govern seismic events are so complex that scientists have struggled to assemble forecasts on the scale of decades. Now a new statistical technique has enabled John Rundle and his team at the University of California to narrow the forecast window to less than three years. The calculations require a day of supercomputing time, but he and his partners plan to automate research-quality forecasts and make them available online. You can only do this with grid computing. The idea of linking supercomputers into a computational grid to confront big problems isn't a new one, but Rundle and others in Earth science are doing something different. They're linking grids together - effectively, using grids of grids - thanks to a software movement that takes its name from the musical phenomenon known as the mashup