1. Recent severe earthquakes
Looking for patterns in data

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

3. 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????

4. 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

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

6. 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

7. 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 Chile earthquake,
the magnitude Prince William Sound, Alaska earthquake,
the magnitude Andreanof, Alaska earthquake,
and the magnitude 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.

8. 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?