Global Earthquake Potential Estimated from Seismicity, Strain, and Tectonic Environment

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

EAR-0001128 Jackson, David D. This project will support work development and testing a long-term earthquake potential model (probability as a function of location, magnitude, and time) based on past seismicity and seismic moment balance. Work has been done testing a simple model based on a smoothed version of past seismicity in several regions of the Pacific Rim. This model will be improved in several ways. First, the research will explicitly introduce time-dependent long-term clustering of earthquakes. Second, the model's dependence on magnitude and focal mechanism of past earthquakes will be optimized. Third, the research will examine the relationships between magnitude distribution and tectonic environment to apply appropriate magnitude distributions for various tectonic regimes. In this process, the work will test several major hypotheses about earthquake recurrence and the dependence of maximum magnitude, seismic coupling, and b-value on tectonic environment. The work will also test for characteristic earthquakes, quasi-periodic earthquake recurrence, clustering, and the dependence of maximum magnitude and seismic coupling on plate convergence rate and the age of the subducted plate.