Recent severe earthquakes Looking for patterns in data

Earthquakes to compare Chile 2010 Haiti 2010 Italy 2009 China 2008 Indian Ocean 2004

Connections in the data? Is depth related to magnitude? boundary type? Is magnitude related to anything else? Do we have enough data to draw conclusions????

EQ magnitude Boundary type Depth km Land/water Chile 8.8 convergent 35 water Haiti 7.0 transform 13 land Italy 6.3 China 7.9 19 Indian Ocean 9.1 30

Should we look at other data? Get data from USGS? We should look at strongest EQs ?

What is our hypothesis? The most powerful EQs happen at convergent boundaries that involve subduction. These occur at greater depth than EQs at transform fault boundaries

Historical data shows that… The worlds largest recorded earthquakes were all megathrust events and occur where one tectonic plate subducts beneath another. These include: the magnitude 9.5 1960 Chile earthquake, the magnitude 9.2 1964 Prince William Sound, Alaska earthquake, the magnitude 9.1 1957 Andreanof, Alaska earthquake, and the magnitude 9.0 1952 Kamchatka earthquake. As with the recent event, megathrust earthquakes often generate large tsunamis that can cause damage over a much wider area than is directly effected by ground shaking near the earthquake's rupture.

Questions still unanswered Can we use our understanding of plate subduction to explain why more energy might be released at convergent boundaries? What about divergent boundaries? Don’t EQs occur there?