Constraint on the recurrence of great outer-rise earthquakes from seafloor bathymetry

Norman H. Sleep

Published December 2012, SCEC Contribution #1674

Great outer rise earthquakes are a tsunami hazard as they occur on steeply dipping faults (Lay et al., 2009).
The largest instrumentally recorded of these events are the 1933 Sanriku Japan earthquake (Mw = 8.4) and 1977
Sumba Indonesia earthquake (Mw = 8.3) (Lay et al., 2009). Seafloor bathymetry (Kobayashi et al., 1998) and
plate kinematics indicate a great Mw ≥ 8 outer rise earthquake on the zone of the great Tohoku Mw 9 event can
occur at most once in 7 megathrust cycles.

Citation
Sleep, N. H. (2012). Constraint on the recurrence of great outer-rise earthquakes from seafloor bathymetry. Earth, Planets and Space, 64(12), 1245-1246. doi: 10.5047/eps.2012.07.011.