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Two recent earthquakes left their mark on Santiago de Chile and Tokyo, well beyond the rupture zones, raising questions about the future vulnerability of these and other cities that lie in seismically active regions. Though spared strong shaking, the megacities nevertheless lit up in small quakes, perhaps signaling an abrupt change in the condition for failure on the faults beneath the cities. To detect such changes in earthquake rate requires good seismic monitoring networks; to respond to such hazard increases with civic preparations requires good government.
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Article detailing the science and synthesis that happend at the Powell Center. https://eos.org/project-updates/seismic-hazard-assessment-honing-the-debate-testing-the-models
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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...
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