Look to tides for signs of big quakes to come.

The article discusses how tides could help predict major earthquakes, such as the March 2011 magnitude 9 earthquake in Japan, which triggered a tsunami. An overview of a report in "Geophysical Research Letters" magazine regarding research by Sachiko Tanaka and colleagues of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention in Tsukuba, Japan, investigating the link between minor earthquakes triggered by tidal forces and major earthquakes is presented.