Accelerating seismicity and stress accumulation before large earthquakes

The stress field that existed before a large earth- quake can be calculated based on the known source parame- ters of the event. This stress field can be used to define a region that shows greater seismic moment rate changes prior to the event than arbitrarily shaped regions, allowing us to link two previously unrelated subjects: Coulomb stress interactions and accelerating seismicity before large earthquakes. As an example, we have examined all M≥6.5 earthquakes in California since 1950. While we illustrate the model using seismicity in California, the technique i s general and can be applied to any tectonically active re- gion. We show that where sufficient knowledge of the re- gional tectonics exists, this method can be used to aug- ment current techniques for seismic hazard estimation.

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