HR: 14:00h
AN: U43A-01 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Understanding where a great earthquake can happen
AU: * McCaffrey, R
EM: mccafr@rpi.edu
AF: GNS Science, PO Box 30368, Lower Hutt, New Zealand
AB: Nearly every subduction zone in the world is long enough to produce a Mw = 9.0 or larger earthquake. For decades, Earth scientists have sought explanations as to why some do and some don't. As a consequence, prior to December 26, 2004, the North Sumatra - Andaman - Nicobar subduction zone was thought to be among the least likely to slip in a great earthquake. I will discuss some of the logic behind this notion and how new observations relate to it. Hindering these efforts is our very incomplete history of great earthquakes. Hence, correlations based on this earthquake history lead to incorrect conclusions. The Dec. 2004 earthquake and tsunami taught us that we are much more vulnerable to such natural disasters than we previously thought. Perhaps the lesson we should be gleaning is that every subduction zone may be a future site of a great quake and, where conditions are right, a tsunami.
DE: 7223 Earthquake interaction, forecasting, and prediction (1217, 1242)
DE: 7230 Seismicity and tectonics (1207, 1217, 1240, 1242)
SC: Union [U]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly