LURR's Twenty Years and Its Perspective

Seismogenic process is a nonlinear and irreversible one, so that the response to loading of a seismogenic zone is different from the unloading one. This difference reflects quantitatively the process of an earthquake preparation. A physics-based new parameter-Load/Unload Response Ratio (LURR) was proposed to measure quantitatively the proximity to a strong earthquake and then used to be an earthquake predictor. In the present paper, a brief history of LURR is recalled; inspection of real earthquake cases, numerical simulations and laboratory studies of LURR, prediction efforts in terms of LURR, probability problem of LURR and its prospect are also expatiated.