Abstract
By comparing seasonal rainfall data from the past 90 years with the occurrence of large (M ≥ 6) earthquakes along an arid stretch of the San Andreas fault system in southern California, certain correlations have been observed. Most large earthquakes are preceded by a pattern consisting of a few years of below normal precipitation (drought) terminated by one or more consecutive seasons of heavy (above normal) rainfall. While this drought-above normal rainfall cycle can be seen at times other than prior to major earthquakes, it precedes, to varying degrees, all of the twelve M ≥ 6 events. This new precursor evidence, when combined with other premonitory signals, may offer a helpful diagnostic measure that could be useful in earthquake prediction in arid regions.
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© 1979 Springer Basel AG
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Huang, LS., McRaney, J., Teng, Tl., Prebish, M. (1979). A Preliminary Study on the Relationship between Precipitation and Large Earthquakes in Southern California. In: Wyss, M. (eds) Earthquake Prediction and Seismicity Patterns. Contributions to Current Research in Geophysics. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-6430-5_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-6430-5_11
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Basel
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