13th International Conference on Fracture June 16–21, 2013, Beijing, China -2- The plate tectonic theory has become the dominant theory for the Earth system in geosciences including seismogeology and seismology. Consequently, the belief and/or consensus that earthquakes are unpredictable have become much widely acceptance in recent 40 years. In the ensuing, the author will give a brief account of the elastic rebound theory, and then show its incorrectness. At the end, the author will put forward his gas hypothesis to explain the cause of earthquakes [6-10]. 2. The Elastic Rebound Theory 2.1. The origin The 1906 California Earthquake was investigated by the State Earthquake Investigation Commission. The two reports [3, 4] are the first comprehensive and systematical documentations of damage earthquakes in modern science. In particular, co-seismic surface ruptures were frequently observed along the northern segment of San Andreas Fault and evidenced the fault motion of right-lateral strike-slip (horizontal motion), as shown by the red arrows in Figure 1. Accordingly to plate tectonics, this fault forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. Figure 1. Illustration for elastic rebound for the cause of the 1906 California earthquake [4] The ruptured fault traversed a part of the region where accurate ground topography surveys were made by the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey at various times before and after the earthquake [3, 4]. A summary of the survey results on ground plane is given in Figure 1. The central line passing through the points ", ', ", ', , ', ", 'and " B B O O O Q Q D D is the fault line. The side with the
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