Despite the best monitoring networks, the highest rate of earthquakes and the longest continuous recorded history in the world, this year’s M=9.0 Tohoku, Japan, earthquake was completely unforeseen. The Japanese had expected no larger than a M=8 quake in the Japan trench, 1/30 th the size of the Tohoku temblor. This year also saw the devastating M=6.3 Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake and the M=5.8 Virginia quake, and it marks the bicentennial of the enigmatic but destructive 1811 - 1812 M~7 ½ New Madrid, Missouri, earthquakes, each event an example of how poorly we can forecast earthquake rates or their ultimate size in the planet’s vast intraplate regions far from plate boundaries. The goal of the Global Earthquake Recurrence group is to reassess earthquake rates, their frequency - magnitude distributions, and maximum magnitudes synoptically for all of the major plate boundary and intraplate environments, so that we can build improved models of seismic threat for humanity, and so we can base the U.S. hazard estimates on a more robust global dataset and analysis. The budget of this project would be supported equally by the Powell Center and by the Global Earthquake Model.
Principal Investigator(s):
Ross S Stein (Earthquake Science Center)
Mark Stirling (GNS Science)
Ned Field (Geologic Hazards Team)
Participant(s):
Paramesh Banerjee (Earth Observatory of Singapore)
Margaret S Boettcher (Earthquake Science Center)
Christopher Goldfinger (Oregon State University)
Gavin Hayes (Geologic Hazards Team)
David Jackson (University of California Los Angeles)
Martin Käser (Ludwig-Maximillians University of Munich)
Nicola Litchfield (GNS Science)
Robert McCaffrey (Portland State University)
Marco Pagani (Gem Nexus)
Morgan T Page (Earthquake Science Center)
Mark Petersen (Earth Resources Observation and Science)
Danijel Schorlemmer (GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences)
Shinji Toda (IRIDeS)
Graeme Weatherill (Gem Nexus)
- Source: USGS Sciencebase (id: 526550bee4b0d5a9feee7cd1)
Gavin P Hayes
Senior Science Advisor for Earthquake and Geologic Hazards
- Overview
Despite the best monitoring networks, the highest rate of earthquakes and the longest continuous recorded history in the world, this year’s M=9.0 Tohoku, Japan, earthquake was completely unforeseen. The Japanese had expected no larger than a M=8 quake in the Japan trench, 1/30 th the size of the Tohoku temblor. This year also saw the devastating M=6.3 Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake and the M=5.8 Virginia quake, and it marks the bicentennial of the enigmatic but destructive 1811 - 1812 M~7 ½ New Madrid, Missouri, earthquakes, each event an example of how poorly we can forecast earthquake rates or their ultimate size in the planet’s vast intraplate regions far from plate boundaries. The goal of the Global Earthquake Recurrence group is to reassess earthquake rates, their frequency - magnitude distributions, and maximum magnitudes synoptically for all of the major plate boundary and intraplate environments, so that we can build improved models of seismic threat for humanity, and so we can base the U.S. hazard estimates on a more robust global dataset and analysis. The budget of this project would be supported equally by the Powell Center and by the Global Earthquake Model.
Principal Investigator(s):
Ross S Stein (Earthquake Science Center)
Mark Stirling (GNS Science)
Ned Field (Geologic Hazards Team)Participant(s):
Paramesh Banerjee (Earth Observatory of Singapore)
Margaret S Boettcher (Earthquake Science Center)
Christopher Goldfinger (Oregon State University)
Gavin Hayes (Geologic Hazards Team)
David Jackson (University of California Los Angeles)
Martin Käser (Ludwig-Maximillians University of Munich)
Nicola Litchfield (GNS Science)
Robert McCaffrey (Portland State University)
Marco Pagani (Gem Nexus)
Morgan T Page (Earthquake Science Center)
Mark Petersen (Earth Resources Observation and Science)
Danijel Schorlemmer (GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences)
Shinji Toda (IRIDeS)
Graeme Weatherill (Gem Nexus)- Source: USGS Sciencebase (id: 526550bee4b0d5a9feee7cd1)
- Connect
Gavin P Hayes
Senior Science Advisor for Earthquake and Geologic HazardsEmailPhone