Displacement and Geometrical Characteristics of Earthquake Surface Ruptures: Issues and Implications for Seismic-Hazard Analysis and the Process of Earthquake Rupture

There now exist about three dozen historical earthquakes for which in- vestigators have constructed maps of earthquake rupture traces accompanied by de- scriptions of the coseismic slip observed along the fault strike. The maps and slip distributions are compiled here to place observational bounds on aspects of seismic- hazard analysis and fault mechanics. Analysis leads to an initial statistical basis to predict the end points of rupture and the amount of surface slip expected at sites along the strike during earthquakes on mapped faults. The observations also give support to the ideas that there exists a process zone or volume of about 3-4 km in dimension at the fronts of large laterally propagating…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• SC
  Southern California Earthquake Center
• UG
  U.S. Geological Survey