Abstract
Arising from: E. L. Olson & R. M. Allen Nature 438, 212–215 (2005); Olson & Allen reply
It is essential in an earthquake early-warning system to be able rapidly to determine the size and location of an earthquake. Olson and Allen1 claim that the size of large earthquakes (magnitude (M) greater than 5.5) can be estimated from the seismic energy radiated during the first several seconds of fault rupture, implying that the earthquake process is deterministic. But here we analyse waveform data from more than 50 events (M≥6.0) recorded by the Japanese Hi-net seismic network and find no evidence that earthquake magnitude can be estimated before the rupture has completed. This bears on the difficult problem of understanding the physics of the earthquake process2.
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References
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Rydelek, P., Horiuchi, S. Is earthquake rupture deterministic?. Nature 442, E5–E6 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04963
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04963
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