The field of the expertise of the Institute covers the application of modern mathematics to seismology and adjacent Earth Sciences. Taking advantage on traditional interest of Russian "pure" mathematicians to the applied problems, the Institute is built up on the direct involvement of the world-class mathematicians like L. Kantorovich, I. Gelfand, Ya. Sinai and their schools.

The Institute is known for pioneering results in the fields of earthquake prediction, seismic risk, verification of compliance to nuclear test ban treaty, structure of the Earth, exploration of mineral deposits, signal processing, wave propagation, geophysical fluid dynamics, magnetic dynamo.

Most recent is the application of the concept of chaos to the dynamics of the lithosphere. This approach led to development of earthquake prediction algorithms, and to a new understanding of instability of large systems in general; potential applications range from geological disasters to megacities and socio-economic systems.

Since 1960 the faculty of the Institute maintained co-operation with the leading research institutions from more than 20 countries. The Institute participates in many international projects and conducts annual international workshops on mathematical geophysics and earthquake prediction.

The Institute has 125 employees, among them 12 D. Sc's and Professors, 40 Ph.D., 52 University graduates.

The problems covered by IIEPT activity and recent results are the following:

1. General theory of deterministic chaos;
2. Nonlinear dynamics of the lithosphere and earthquake prediction;
1. Modeling of dynamics of block and fault systems;
2. Algorithms for intermediate-term earthquake prediction and their successful applications worldwide;
3. Hierarchical models of crack formation and application of renormalisation group methods and theory of critical phenomena to the study of seismicity and earthquake prediction;
3. Identification of earthquake-prone areas by pattern recognition approach;
4. Probabilistic estimation of seismic risk in terms of the damage to economy and population for the biggest cities of the world, earthquake insurance of rural dwellings in Georgia (FSU), Baikal-Amur railroad, Italy etc.
5. Geophysical fluid dynamics: quantitative modeling of basin evolution;
6. Forward and inverse problems of seismology;
7. Signal-to-noise enhancement for a single stations and arrays and sophisticated data processing;
8. Broadband seismological registration.

1. Scenarious of development of instability in hierarchical nonlinear (chaotic) system: theory and numerical simulation;
2. New generation of earthquake prediction algorithms, with tenfold increase of accuracy;
3. Instability/seismicity of platforms;
4. Monitoring of stress-strain field in seismic regions;
5. Interaction with civic protection authorities in estimation of seismic risk and in earthquake prediction;
6. Geophysical fluid dynamics: interplay between mantle flows and surface processes;
7. New state-of-the-art broadband seismograph (now being tested in Belgium and UK).

• Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics RAS