The primary purpose of this book is to present quantitative forecasting of the mid-term probability of large earthquakes both globally and over various regions of the world. The author used the novel seismic activity regression formula to calculate the probability of an earthquake, in the global and major seismic zones, with any given magnitude at any given time since the most recent earthquake of the same magnitude. This book is the author's 50+ years accumulation of achievements in researching and teaching geophysics and seismology for mitigation of earthquake disasters. The author hopes that those after him will find the methodology in this book to be helpful in limiting the death and destruction caused by earthquakes of catastrophic magnitude.
作者簡介：
Professor Yi-Ben Tsai
March 23, 1940 - January 31, 2018
Professor Tsai was born in a poor farming family of nine children in Taiwan.
With an unwavering belief in the importance of education, Professor Tsai earned a degree in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University in 1962.
After losing two sisters due to flash floods caused by a typhoon in 1959, Professor Tsai turned his efforts to mitigating the effects of natural disasters.
In 1965, Professor Tsai graduated from National Central University in Taiwan with a Master’s Degree in Geophysics. Professor Tsai then moved to the United States to pursue a doctorate in Geophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He graduated from MIT in 1969 with a PhD in Geophysics, specializing in Seismology.
In 1973, Professor Tsai moved back to Taiwan with his young family and started his earthquake study journey.
For more than 50 years, Professor Tsai devoted his life to the study and teaching of Geophysics and Seismology for the purpose of planning for, and mitigating the effects of, earthquakes. He focused in particular on the areas of seismic telemetry network, strong motion observation networks, earthquake early warning systems, and precursor observations which can improve prediction ability and ultimately minimize loss of life.
Professor Tsai was awarded many honors in Taiwan, including: Distinguished Alumni from National Central University, Outstanding Scholar Award from Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship, Outstanding Science and Technology Award, and the Ten Outstanding Young Men Award. He was also known as the “Son of Earthquakes” in Taiwan due to his contributions to earthquake research and prediction in Taiwan. Professor Tsai was the founding director of the Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica in Taiwan and the founding dean of the College of Earth Sciences, National Central University. He has nurtured countless talented seismologists with the hope that they carry his legacy forward.
各界推薦
名人推薦：
“This is an excellent summary of the life-long contributions of the author Dr. Yi-Ben Tsai, who has essentially led the initiation in 1960s and its subsequent development during the ensuing half Century, of the Taiwan Earthquake Research Program, which has led to one of the best and most productive seismological research enterprises in the world. Based on his Taiwan work, in this book Dr. Tsai further gives a comprehensive outline on the status of the earthquake science and hazards in the world that should be most valuable for professionals as well as the interested public.”
– Ta-Liang Teng, Professor of Geophysics and Seismology, University of Southern California, USA
“Dr. Yi-Ben Tsai had an extensive career as a research seismologist, an educator, academic/research administrator and in industry all in earthquake country. This book is the result of his labor of love – he recruited his whole family in the last stage of his writing to complete the manuscript. In this book, he based his seismicity forecast on a modified way to estimate Gutenberg-Richter relation with measure of uncertainty on the annual rate and applied the calculation to all major seismic regions of the world. It is a useful reference for readers concerned with the seismicity of the earth.”
– Francis T. Wu, Professor of Geophysics, State University of New York at Binghamton, USA
“This is a wonderful book for those who are interested in earthquakes and the global tectonics.
In addition to the global seismicity, general seismotectonics are introduced in many regions where the next big earthquakes are expected.”
– Sun-Lin Chung, Distinguished Research Fellow and Director, Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
“The excellent book integrates global seismicity data, plate tectonics and quantitative forecasting of the probability of large earthquakes both globally and over various regions of the world. It is a must-read for students, academics, and professionals in seismic geosciences.”
– Ching-Hua Lo, NTU Chair Professor of Geosciences and Executive Vice President, National Taiwan
“Prof. Tsai is a pioneer for Earth Sciences studies in Taiwan. His vision in earthquake science and engineering brought significant impact to the society of Taiwan for earthquake hazard mitigation. This book compiled the global seismicity to bring in the attention of high seismic hazard region, and provide fundamental message for earthquake science and engineering.”
– Kuo-Fong Ma, Professor and Chair of Earthquake - Disaster & Risk Management (E-DREaM) Center, National Central University, Taiwan
“A great book for an excellent introduction of seismology as well as earthquake engineering. It provides a lot of practical experiences to face the next big earthquakes.”
– Yih-Min Wu, Professor of Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
“Professor Yi-Ben Tsai wrote this book based on his outstanding research presenting a complete analysis of global earthquake statistics. Professor Tsai devoted his life to earthquake observation and study. As a leader in the development of earth science and technology in Taiwan, he is a role model for global earth science researchers. This book is definitely worth recommending to students and teachers in universities and research institutes and also serves to commemorate professor Yi-Ben Tsai, the father of Taiwan seismology.”
– Wen-Yen Chang, Distinguished Professor and Dean, College of Environmental Studies, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan
“This is a great contribution to earthquake studies, with an innovative theory based on fundamental seismological knowledge. As Professor Tsai stated, hopefully the methodology in this book can be helpful in limiting the death and destruction caused by earthquakes. The data can be significant for policy makers or anyone making important decisions on earthquake preparedness.”
– Yi-Heng Li, Senior Researcher of Green Energy and Environment Research Laboratory, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan
“This book is an excellent reference book for the patterns of global seismicity and the evaluation for the probabilities of large earthquakes in the world. Dr. Tsai devoted himself to the study of the seismic hazard and this book shows the passion of his work. For the scientific perspective and also in memory of Dr. Tsai, this book is worth having.”
– Hao Kuo-Chen, Associate Professor of Department of Earth Sciences, National Central University, Taiwan
“An excellent manifest of the lifelong work and focus of a devoted seismologist on a pressing topic facing our society today and in the future. The theoretic derivation and explanation are clear; the data compilation and analysis are painstakingly comprehensive and detailed.”
– Chin-Wu Chen, Assistant Professor of Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
名人推薦：“This is an excellent summary of the life-long contributions of the author Dr. Yi-Ben Tsai, who has essentially led the initiation in 1960s and its subsequent development during the ensuing half Century, of the Taiwan Earthquake Research Program, which has led to one of the best and most productive seismological research enterprises in the world. Based on his Taiwan work, in this book Dr. Tsai further gives a comprehensive outline on the status of the earthquake science and hazards in...
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作者序
謝誌：
This book builds on concepts first covered in a paper I co-wrote with Kuei-Pao Chen and Wen-Yen Chang (Chang, W.Y., Chen, K.P., Tsai Y.B., (2017) Alternative representation of the Gutenberg-Richter relation in terms of the logarithmic mean annual seismicity rate and its standard deviation, Natural Hazards, 85: 1297-1322). Kuei-Pao Chen and I worked together for many years, and I especially enjoyed our close collaboration on this paper.
After the publication of the paper, I began to develop the forecasting methodology described in this book by (1) inverting the alternative G-R relation to obtain a corresponding relation for the logarithmic mean return interval and its standard deviation and (2) using the origin time of the most recent earthquake with a given magnitude, as of a chosen date, to start the cumulative probability curve for that magnitude. These two key transformations allow us to determine the probability of earthquakes with that magnitude at any time after the chosen date.
It has taken around 18 months to collect the raw data used in this book and to calculate the earthquake probability of 50 regions worldwide.
As my health has declined steadily in the last few months, and I realized that I was running out of time to finish the book, I turned to the help of my family: my daughter Virginia (a lawyer), my son Y.K. (a doctor), and my daughter-in-law Carrie (another lawyer) helped the preparation of figure captions and editing, my niece Helen and my son-in-law Jay (both MBA’s) helped with the charts and tables, my brother-in-law Sunny helped with computer troubleshooting, and my granddaughter Georgia designed the cover art. My wife Jen kept us all on task in her role as “General Manager”!
In the end, this book became a true family project. I am forever grateful for the love and support (not to mention labor!) of my family, which has allowed me to complete this book. For me, this book is the final culmination of the 50+ years I have devoted to studying and teaching geophysics and seismology for the purpose of planning for, and mitigating the effects of, earthquakes.
I hope that those after me will find the methodology in this book to be helpful in limiting the death and destruction caused by earthquakes of catastrophic magnitude.
Yi-Ben Tsai
蔡義本
January 2018
Los Altos, California, USA
謝誌：
This book builds on concepts first covered in a paper I co-wrote with Kuei-Pao Chen and Wen-Yen Chang (Chang, W.Y., Chen, K.P., Tsai Y.B., (2017) Alternative representation of the Gutenberg-Richter relation in terms of the logarithmic mean annual seismicity rate and its standard deviation, Natural Hazards, 85: 1297-1322). Kuei-Pao Chen and I worked together for many years, and I especially enjoyed our close collaboration on this paper.
After the publication of the paper, I began to deve...
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目錄
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Purpose of this Book 1.2 Outline of this Book
Chapter 2 Earthquakes and Global Plate Tectonics 2.1 Earthquake Epicenters in the World 2.2 Hypocenter Depths of Earthquakes in the World 2.3 Global Plate Tectonic Theory
Chapter 3 Data Used 3.1 Data Availability 3.2 Selective uses of the data in three periods
Chapter 4 Method for Forecasting Probabilities of Large Earthquakes 4.1 The methodology 4.2 Step 1: Calculating the logarithmic mean annual seismicity rates and corresponding standard deviations for a series of magnitudes 4.3 Step 2: Obtaining the alternative Gutenberg-Richter (G-R) relation 4.4 Step 3: Obtaining the relation for the recurrence interval, T, as a function of M 4.5 Step 4: Calculating the cumulative probability of earthquakes as a function of T, CPF(T) 4.6 Step 5: Forecasting the probabilities of large earthquakes
Chapter 5 Global Earthquakes in Different Depth Ranges 5.1 Distribution of global earthquakes in six depth ranges 5.2 Global earthquakes in the depth range of 0-33 km 5.3 Global earthquakes in the depth range of 33-70 km 5.4 Global earthquakes in the depth range of 70-150 km 5.5 Global earthquakes in the depth range of 150-300 km 5.6 Global earthquakes in the depth range of 300-500 km 5.7 Global earthquakes in the depth range of 500-800 km
Chapter 6 Eastern Circum-Pacific Seismic Belt 6.1 Eastern Circum-Pacific Seismic Belt 6.2 Eastern Aleutian Arc-Central Alaska 6.3 Southeastern Alaska and British Columbia 6.4 Cascadia Region 6.5 Northern California 6.6 Southern California 6.7 Gulf of California 6.8 Southwest Coast of Mexico 6.9 Central America 6.10 Caribbean Region 6.11 Colombia-Ecuador-Peru 6.12 Chile and Northern Argentina
Chapter 7 Western Circum-Pacific Seismic Belt 7.1 Western Circum-Pacific Seismic Belt 7.2 Western Aleutian Islands 7.3 Kamchatka-Kuril Islands-Hokkaido 7.4 Japanese Tohoku Region 7.5 Japanese Nankai Region 7.6 Mariana Islands 7.7 Ryukyu Islands 7.8 Taiwan Region 7.9 Southern Taiwan-Luzon Island Region 7.10 The Philippine Islands 7.11 Celebes-Moluccas-Timor Islands Region 7.12 Papua New Guinea-Solomon Islands 148 7.13 Vanuatu-New Caledonia Islands 152 7.14 Tonga-Kermadec-New Zealand (North Island) 7.15 New Zealand
Chapter 8 Java-Sumatra, Andaman-Nicobar Islands and Eurasian Continent 8.1 Eurasian Continent 8.2 Java-Sumatra Islands 8.3 Andaman-Nicobar Islands 8.4 Myanmar-Southeast Asia 8.5 Himalaya-Eastern Asia 8.6 Pakistan-Afghanistan-Central Asia-Iran-Caucasus 8.7 Turkey-Greece-Romania 8.8 Alps-Italy-Slovenia-Bosnia 8.9 Western Europe-North Africa 8.10 Northern China-Lake Baikal
Chapter 9: Canada-Conterminous United States 9.1 Canada 9.2 Conterminous United States 9.3 U.S. Central-Eastern Region 9.4 U.S. Intermountain Region 9.5 U.S. Western Region
Chapter 10: Mid-Oceanic Ridges-Transform Faults 10.1 Arctic Ocean 10.2 Northern Atlantic Ocean 10.3 Southern Atlantic Ocean 10.4 Southern Indian Ocean 10.5 Northern Indian Ocean 10.6 East Africa 10.7 Southern Pacific Ocean 10.8 Hawaii Islands 10.9 Global Mid-Oceanic Ridges
References Professor Yi-Ben Tsai Special Thanks
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Purpose of this Book 1.2 Outline of this Book
Chapter 2 Earthquakes and Global Plate Tectonics 2.1 Earthquake Epicenters in the World 2.2 Hypocenter Depths of Earthquakes in the World 2.3 Global Plate Tectonic Theory
Chapter 3 Data Used 3.1 Data Availability 3.2 Selective uses of the data in three periods
Chapter 4 Method for Forecasting Probabilities of Large Earthquakes 4.1 The methodology 4.2 Step 1: Calculating the logarit...
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