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Science 25 June 1993:
Vol. 260. no. 5116, pp. 1923 - 1926
DOI: 10.1126/science.260.5116.1923
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Articles

Spatiotemporal Patterns in the Energy Release of Great Earthquakes

Barbara Romanowicz 1

1 Seismographic Station and Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720

For the past 80 years, the energy released in great strike-slip and thrust earthquakes has occurred in alternating cycles of 20 to 30 years. This pattern suggests that a global transfer mechanism from poloidal to toroidal components of tectonic plate motions is operating on time scales of several decades. The increase in seismic activity in California in recent years may be related to an acceleration of global strike-slip moment release, as regions of shear deformation mature after being reached by stresses that have propagated away from regions of great subduction decoupling earthquakes in the 1960s.

Submitted on January 19, 1993
Accepted on April 22, 1993


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Long-Term Influence of Giant Earthquakes: Backward Empirical Evidence and Forward Test.
W. Marzocchi and J. Selva (2008)
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 98, 1102-1112
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Evidence for a Global Seismic-Moment Release Sequence.
C. G. Bufe and D. M. Perkins (2005)
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 95, 833-843
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Viscosity of Oceanic Asthenosphere Inferred from Remote Triggering of Earthquakes.
F. F. Pollitz, R. Bürgmann, and B. Romanowicz (1998)
Science 280, 1245-1249
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