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Science 21 March 1975:
Vol. 187. no. 4181, pp. 1077 - 1079
DOI: 10.1126/science.187.4181.1077
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Articles

Accelerated Plate Tectonics

Don L. Anderson 1

1 Seismological Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena 91125

The concept of a stressed elastic lithospheric plate riding on a viscous asthenosphere is used to calculate the recurrence interval of great earthquakes at convergent plate boundaries, the separation of decoupling and lithospheric earthquakes, and the migration pattern of large earthquakes along an arc. It is proposed that plate motions accelerate after great decoupling earthquakes and that most of the observed plate motions occur during short periods of time, separated by periods of relative quiescence.


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