2019/08/07 by Álvaro Corral, Alvaro Corral, Isabel Serra
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Classical mechanics #Computer science #Distribution (mathematics) #Earthquake Detection and Analysis #Extreme value theory #Fault (geology) #Geodesy #Geology #Geometry #High-pressure geophysics and materials #Magnitude (astronomy) #Mathematical analysis #Mathematics #Maximum magnitude #Moment (physics) #Moment magnitude scale #Physics #Range (aeronautics) #Richter magnitude scale #Scale (ratio) #Scaling #Second moment of area #Seismic hazard #Seismic moment #Seismology #Statistical physics #Statistics #Value (mathematics) #Window (computing) #earthquake and tectonic studies #physics.data-an #physics.geo-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0220237
published as PLoS ONE 14(8): e0220237 (2019) · Virtually accepted for publication
arxiv created 2019/08/07 · openalex publication_date 2019/08/19 · arxiv updated 2020/11/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
It is well accepted that, at the global scale, the Gutenberg-Richter (GR) law describing the distribution of earthquake magnitude or seismic moment has to be modified at the tail to properly account for the most extreme events. It is debated, though, how much additional time of earthquake recording will be necessary to properly constrain this tail. Using the global CMT catalog, we study how three modifications of the GR law that incorporate a corner-value parameter are compatible with the size of the largest observed earthquake in a given time window. Current data lead to a rather large range of parameter values (e.g., corner magnitude from 8.6 to 10.2 for the so-called tapered GR distribution). Updating this estimation in the future will strongly depend on the maximum magnitude observed, but, under reasonable assumptions, the range will be substantially reduced by the end of this century, contrary to claims in previous literature.