First Results of the Regional Earthquake Likelihood Models Experiment -- New Zealand Earthquake Forecast Testing Centre -- The Area Skill Score Statistic for Evaluating Earthquake Predictability Experiments -- Space—Time Earthquake Prediction: The Error Diagrams -- Identifying Seismicity Levels via Poisson Hidden Markov Models -- Distribution of Seismicity Before the Larger Earthquakes in Italy in the Time Interval 1994–2004 -- Predicting the Human Losses Implied by Predictions of Earthquakes: Southern Sumatra and Central Chile -- Space- and Time-Dependent Probabilities for Earthquake Fault Systems from Numerical Simulations: Feasibility Study and First Results -- Spatial Separation of Large Earthquakes, Aftershocks, and Background Seismicity: Analysis of Interseismic and Coseismic Seismicity Patterns in Southern California -- Earthquake Source Zones in Northeast India: Seismic Tomography, Fractal Dimension and b Value Mapping -- Seismic Hazard Evaluation in Western Turkey as Revealed by Stress Transfer and Time-dependent Probability Calculations -- Correlation of Static Stress Changes and Earthquake Occurrence in the North Aegean Region -- Aftershock Sequences Modeled with 3-D Stress Heterogeneity and Rate-State Seismicity Equations: Implications for Crustal Stress Estimation -- Earthquake Recurrence in Simulated Fault Systems -- Continuous Observation of Groundwater and Crustal Deformation for Forecasting Tonankai and Nankai Earthquakes in Japan -- Anomalies of Seismic Activity and Transient Crustal Deformations Preceding the 2005 M 7.0 Earthquake West of Fukuoka.

This special issue of Pure and Applied Geophysics is the second of two volumes containing an augmented collection of papers originating from the Evison Symposium on Seismogenesis and Earthquake Forecasting held in Wellington, New Zealand, in February 2008. The volumes honor Frank Evison's interest in earthquake generation and forecasting. This volume includes descriptions of earthquake forecasting test centers through the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP) program and the first results from the Regional Earthquake Likelihood Model (RELM) experiment in California. Other papers discuss methods of testing predictions, in particular by the use of error diagrams. There is discussion of prediction methodologies using seismicity, including an application of the statistical technique of Hidden Markov Models to identify changes in seismicity and a new technique for identifying precursory quiescence. Several papers employ other data besides seismicity, such as geologically determined faults, calculations of stress changes via Coulomb stress modeling, tomographically determined velocity structure, groundwater, crustal deformation, and comparisons of real earthquakes to synthetic seismicity determined from hypothesized earthquake physics. One paper focuses on the prediction of human casualties in the event that a large earthquake occurs anywhere on the globe. The volume will be useful to students and professional researchers who are interested in the earthquake preparation process and in converting that understanding into forecasts of earthquake occurrence.