Energy Release in Earthquakes

The energy release in great earthquakes

The conventional magnitude scale M suffers saturation when the rupture dimension of the earthquake exceeds the wavelength of the seismic waves used for the magnitude determination (usually 5-50 km). This saturation leads to an inaccurate estimate of energy released in great earthquakes. To circumvent his problem the strain energy drop W (difference in strain energy before and after an earthquak...

Spatiotemporal patterns in the energy release of great earthquakes.

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 accele...

Elastic energy release in great earthquakes and eruptions

*Correspondence: Agust Gudmundsson, Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Queen’s Building, Egham TW20 0EX, UK e-mail: rock.fractures@ googlemail.com The sizes of earthquakes are measured using well-defined, measurable quantities such as seismic moment and released or transformed elastic energy. No similar measures exist for the sizes of volcanic eruptions, making i...

THE ENERGY RELEASE IN EARTHQUAKES BY M. S. VASSILIOU AND Hmoo KANAMORI

Energy calculations are generally made through an empirical application of the famihar Gutenberg-Richter energy-magnitude relationships. The precise physical significance of these relationships is somewhat uncertain. We make use here of the recent improvements in knowledge about the earthquake source to place energy measurements on a sounder physical basis. For a rumple trapezoidal far-field di...

Energy Development Linked with Earthquakes