Earthquake Supercycles Inferred from Sea-Level Changes Recorded in the Corals of West Sumatra

Records of relative sea-level change extracted from corals of the Mentawai islands, Sumatra, imply that this 700-kilometer-long section of the Sunda megathrust has generated broadly similar sequences of great earthquakes about every two centuries for at least the past 700 years. The moment magnitude...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2008-12, Vol.322 (5908), p.1674-1678
Main Authors: Sieh, Kerry, Natawidjaja, Danny H, Meltzner, Aron J, Shen, Chuan-Chou, Cheng, Hai, Li, Kuei-Shu, Suwargadi, Bambang W, Galetzka, John, Philibosian, Belle, Edwards, R. Lawrence
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Coral reefs
Corals
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Earthquakes
Earthquakes, seismology
Exact sciences and technology
Geophysics
Internal geophysics
Marine
Observational research
Observatories
Paleoecology
Plate tectonics
Sea level
Seismology
Subsidence
Tectonics
Topographical elevation
Tsunamis
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Summary:Records of relative sea-level change extracted from corals of the Mentawai islands, Sumatra, imply that this 700-kilometer-long section of the Sunda megathrust has generated broadly similar sequences of great earthquakes about every two centuries for at least the past 700 years. The moment magnitude 8.4 earthquake of September 2007 represents the first in a series of large partial failures of the Mentawai section that will probably be completed within the next several decades.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1163589