Stress drop in earthquakes

Abstract
A correlation is made between earthquake magnitude and parameters of fault trace on the basis of dislocation theory. For earthquakes with magnitudes M between 5.5 and 8.5, the correlation with fault length L and the maximum horizontal or vertical offset D (both in cm) is approximately Combining this result with a magnitude-energy formula, it is found that the stress drop is dependent upon magnitude, with the fractional stress drop increasing with magnitude.

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