New Research Opportunities in the Earth Sciences - New Research Opportunities in the Earth Sciences - page 34

Figure 2.11 Relationship between the duration and magnitude of regular earthquakes
(thick blue line) and low-frequency earthquakes (LFEs, red), very low-frequency
earthquakes (VLFs, orange), and slow slip episodes (SSEs, green) in the Nankai
trough off the coast of Japan and episodic tremor and slip (ETS, light blue) in the
Cascadia subduction zone off the coast of the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Pink dots are
silent earthquakes; black symbols are slow events. See original source for further
explanation. SOURCE: Reprinted from Ide et al. (2007) by permission from
Macmillan Publishers Ltd .
Rapid progress in this area can be sustained due to major observational
facilities such as EarthScope being deployed with sufficient station density to capture
the full spectrum of fault behavior. Organized community efforts such as
GeoPRISMS and the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) draw together
the interdisciplinary communities working on faulting and earthquake processes at all
scales, and the level of research excitement and activity provides a clear opportunity
for major advances on this topic during the next 10 years.