The Case for Huge Earthquakes

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Abstract
We generally assume that the limiting magnitudes of future earthquakes can be inferred from the length of mapped faults or fault segments. This assumption is based on empirical observations relating earthquake magnitude with fault length or fault area. This assumption is in conflict with seismological observations and other reasonable assumptions, namely the conservation of seismic moment and the stationarity of earthquake occurrence. In many regions, the rate of earthquakes required to explain the observed seismic moment rate exceeds the historic rate, if the earthquake magnitudes are limited by fault length. The rare occurrence of huge earthquakes (moment magnitude of 8 or greater) could resolve the conflict by providing the moment rate without the need for an excessive rate of “ordinary” large earthquakes. One magnitude 8 earthquake releases the seismic moment of about 30 magnitude 7's. On average, the huge earthquake may even do less damage than the many large ones, although the damage...

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