Scaling of the Source Dimensions of Interface

and Intraslab Subduction-zone Earthquakes

with Moment Magnitude
F. O. Strasser, M. C. Arango, and J. J. Bommer

F. O. Strasser,1 M. C. Arango, 2 and J. J. Bommer 2

INTRODUCTION
This paper derives source scaling relations between rupture
dimensions and moment magnitude for subduction-zone
earthquakes, separating between interface events occurring at
the contact of the subducting and overriding tectonic plates,
and intraslab events, which occur within the subducting slab.
These relations are then compared with existing scaling relations, which are predominantly based on data from crustal
events.
Relations between the dimensions of the rupture zone of
earthquakes and the amount of energy released as measured by
the seismic moment, M0, or equivalently moment magnitude,
Mw, (Hanks and Kanamori 1979), are of great practical use in
engineering seismology. Early relations (e.g., Kanamori and
Anderson 1975; Wyss 1979) were derived with the purpose
of using rupture dimensions to constrain estimates of magnitude. Additionally, the relation between independently determined rupture dimensions and seismic moment also was used
to draw inferences in terms of source scaling from comparisons
between observed data and predictions of theoretical seismological models (e.g., Kanamori and Anderson 1975; Astiz et al.
1987).
Nowadays, moment magnitude is routinely estimated
from instrumental recordings, and the scaling relations
described above are predominantly used to infer the probable
dimensions of an earthquake of given magnitude. Applications
include distance calculations using finite-fault distance metrics (e.g., Chiou and Youngs 2006), characterization of seismic sources in seismic hazard analysis, and theoretical studies
involving forward-modeling of fault slip and resulting ground
motions (e.g., Atkinson and Macias 2009; Somerville et al.
2008). However, the reciprocal relations giving moment magnitude as a function of rupture dimensions may still be useful for estimating the moment magnitude of either historical
or hypothetical scenario events for which an estimate of the
1. Seismology Unit, Council for Geoscience, Private Bag X112, Pretoria
0001, South Africa
2. Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Imperial
College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ,
UK
doi: 10.1785/gssrl .81.6.941

rupture dimensions is available, for instance on the basis of the

dimensions of an observed seismic gap or from fault segmentation models.
The most widely used relations for this purpose are the scaling relations developed by Wells and Coppersmith (1994) in a
study using a worldwide database of source parameters for 421
crustal earthquakes, from which a subset of 244 events with
well-constrained source parameters was selected for regression
analysis to derive, among others, relations between the rupture
length (L), the rupture width, (W), the rupture area (A), and
Mw. A similar study was carried out in terms of surface-magnitude (MS) by Vakov (1996). Both studies were carried out
for shallow crustal events, excluding in particular earthquakes
associated with subduction zones. The resulting parameters are
considered applicable for earthquakes with magnitudes comparable to those in the underlying datasets, i.e. Mw 5.0 to 8.0.
The scaling in terms of rupture area of crustal earthquakes at
the upper end of this range has recently been investigated by
Hanks and Bakun (2002, 2008), building on previous work
by Scholz (1982, 1994) and Romanowicz (1992). These studies found that due to limitations on the width of crustal earthquakes, the scaling of area with moment magnitude for large
earthquakes beyond a transition magnitude of about Mw 7.0
differed from that observed for smaller events.
Mai and Beroza (2000) made use of a collection of finitefault rupture models to investigate source scaling properties. The focus of their study was again the behavior of large
crustal earthquakes, hence their database of 31 published slip
models of 18 earthquakes included only two events associated
with subduction (the 1923 Kanto earthquake and the 1985
Michoacan earthquake). This collection was later expanded
into the SRCMOD database of finite-source rupture models
(Mai 2004; 2007). The current version of SRCMOD includes
a significant number of rupture models of subduction-zone
events, which formed the starting point for the present study.
A recent study by Somerville et al. (2002) recognized the
scaling difference between large crustal and large subductionzone earthquakes. Using a set of seven existing rupture models with heterogeneous slip for large subduction earthquakes,
Somerville et al. (2002) looked for systematic features of these
slip models and their scaling with seismic moment. These were

Seismological Research Letters Volume 81, Number 6 November/December 2010 941

then compared with the characteristics of slip models of crustal

earthquakes determined in a previous study (Somerville et al.
1999). Somerville et al. (2002) found that the main differences
between the slip models of subduction and crustal earthquakes
relate to the rupture area, with rupture areas of subduction
earthquakes being larger by a factor of two or more than those
of crustal earthquakes having the same seismic moment. The
resulting scaling relation for rupture area was subsequently
implemented in the simulations of Somerville et al. (2008)
to predict ground motions from large earthquakes on the
Cascadia subduction zone.
With this exception, there are, to the knowledge of the
authors, no scaling relations available in the open international
literature that have been derived specifically for earthquakes
that occur in subduction-zone environments. While several
authors have investigated the relations of rupture dimensions
of subduction-zone earthquakes, these studies do not derive
formal relations comparable to the Wells and Coppersmith
(1994) relations for crustal earthquakes. As a result, the latter are sometimes used to estimate the rupture dimensions of
subduction-zone earthquakes (e.g., Atkinson and Boore 2003;
Atkinson and Macias 2009). The present paper focuses more
particularly on the relations between the rupture area (A), rupture length (L), rupture width (W) and moment magnitude of
earthquakes that occur in subduction-zone environments.

CONSTRAINTS ON RUPTURE DIMENSIONS OF

SUBDUCTION EARTHQUAKES
There are obvious physical constraints on the rupture dimensions of subduction-zone earthquakes, which need to be
acknowledged prior to any purely statistical interpretation of
observational data. Subduction-zone earthquakes are generally
classified into interface earthquakes occurring at the contact
between the subducting and the overriding plate, and intraslab
events occurring within the subducting slab.
The occurrence of seismic events at the interface is restricted
to a seismogenic zone whose up-dip and down-dip extent (typically, from depths of 510 km to depths of 2555km [Llenos
and McGuire 2007]) is constrained by transitions from velocitystrengthening behavior to velocity-weakening behavior (Scholz
2002). These transitions have been attributed to changes in sediment strength and mineral composition due to changes in temperature and pressure (e.g., Byrne et al. 1988; Hyndman and
Wang 1993; Oleskevich et al. 1999). The width and dip of the
seismogenic zone vary from one subduction zone to another,
depending on the level of coupling between the plates in contact
(Pacheco et al. 1993). These parameters provide a constraint on
the down-dip width of interface earthquakes. It should, however, be noted that in some instances, coseismic rupture has
been observed to extend beyond the locked zone into regions
of aseismic slip (e.g., Kanamori and McNally 1982), thus the
down-dip width of great interface earthquakes may exceed the
width of the locked zone.
Along strike, the length of interface events may be constrained by the presence of lateral structures such as oceanic

ridges or seamounts. However these structures can act as either

barriers or asperities (e.g., Kanamori 1986), hence the relationship between such structures and the rupture lengths of individual earthquakes remains somewhat unclear (Llenos and
McGuire 2007). Fore-arc rheology, basin size, and subducting
seafloor roughness have also been linked to constraints on the
size of great interface earthquakes (Llenos and McGuire 2007;
Morgan et al. 2008).
The geometry and brittleness of the subducting slab similarly constrain the rupture extent of intraslab events. A comprehensive review of the geometry of the various subduction zones is
beyond the scope of this study; global compilations of down-dip
widths and dip angles of the seismogenic portions of subduction
zones can be found in Pacheco et al. (1993) and Tichelaar and
Ruff (1993). Furthermore, values for a particular subduction
zone are generally well-documented in regional studies. These
local constraints should be borne in mind when applying the
scaling relations derived in the present study based on a global
dataset of source parameters of subduction-zone earthquakes.

DATABASE
The database used here is primarily based on the SRCMOD
database compiled by Martin Mai and co-workers (Mai 2004;
2007), from which subduction-type events have been extracted.
These data have been supplemented by a number of recent
studies describing the rupture process of individual events.
In addition to published articles (Barrientos 1988; Choy and
Dewey 1988; Satake 1995; Delouis et al. 1997; Courboulex et
al. 1997; Kikuchi and Yamanaka 2001; Pritchard et al. 2007;
Ichinose et al. 2004; 2006; Takeo et al. 1993; Morikawa and
Sasatani 2004; Quintanar et al. 1999;Yamamoto et al. 2002;
Aoi et al. 2005; Delouis and Legrand 2007; Valle et al. 2003),
these individual studies included the slip models posted on the
Web sites of the database of slip maps of recent large earthquakes from the California Institute of Technology (http://
www.tectonics.caltech.edu/slip_history/) as well as finitefault model inversions by the US Geological Survey (USGS)
(http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/world/historical.php)
and GeoAzur (http://geoazur.oca.eu/spip.php?rubrique57).
The rupture dimensions derived from re-evaluated 1-day
aftershock distributions by Henry and Das (2001) were also
included. The interface dataset was furthermore supplemented
by the subduction events in the dataset compiled by Fujii and
Matsuura (2000), which consists of a reappraised selection of
events from previous compilations by Wells and Coppersmith
(1994), Purcaru and Berckhemer (1982), and Sato (1989).
In order to derive a meaningful scaling relation from observational data, it is important to ensure that the parameters used
in the regression have been derived in a consistent manner. This
is particularly an issue for the rupture dimensions, which can
be estimated using various methods. Wells and Coppersmith
(1994) favored the extent of the best-defined aftershock zone to
define the source dimensions, although they acknowledged that
the ruptures defined by early aftershocks may be slightly larger
than the actual co-seismic rupture zone, following Mendoza

942 Seismological Research Letters Volume 81, Number 6 November/December 2010

and Hartzell (1988). Estimates of rupture length calculated

from geodetic modelling or from corner frequencies of seismograms were only included if independent estimates were available for corroboration. Darragh and Bolt (1987) note that the
discrepancy between the extent of the aftershock zone and the
rupture length estimated through other means is particularly a
problem for the estimation of shorter ruptures (L<100km).
Henry and Das (2001) also point out the need for a uniform definition of the source dimensions, and calculated the
extent of 1-day, 7-day and 30-day aftershock zones for a set of
64 dip-slip earthquakes including 41 interface and 6 intraslab
events. They found that aftershock zones of subduction interface events tended to expand substantially along strike and updip, and that depending on the event considered, the length of
the 1-day aftershock zone was likely to under- or overestimate
the true rupture length. Tajima and Kanamori (1985) found
that the expansion of aftershock zones was dependent on the
level of coupling of the subduction zone. The 1-day aftershock
dimensions from Henry and Das (2001) were nevertheless
added to our dataset, as the set as a whole does not show any
systematic bias with respect to the total dimensions derived
from slip distributions (Figure 1). For the few earthquakes in
common to both sets the difference between models was not
more pronounced than the differences observed between rupture dimensions assumed in slip inversion studies carried out
by different authors.
As in previous studies, values of the source dimensions and
moment magnitude were averaged when several studies were
available for the same event. Mai and Beroza (2000) defined
effective dimensions based on the autocorrelation width of the
one-dimensional slip function obtained by summing the slip
distribution along strike or down-dip. Given that the full slip
distributions required to calculate the effective dimensions
thus defined were only available for part of the database considered, the total length, width, and area listed in the individual
studies were used. Also, Mai and Beroza (2000) noted that the
differences between effective and total dimensions were most
pronounced for smaller earthquakes and very long strike-slip
events, which are not the focus of the present study. For similar reasons, no attempt was made to derive relations between
moment magnitude and the combined area of asperities, Aa, as
in the studies by Somerville et al. (1999, 2002) and Ichinose et
al. (2006).
The resulting database includes 139 models corresponding
to 95 interface events with magnitudes ranging from Mw 6.3
to Mw 9.4, and 21 models corresponding to 20 intraslab events
with magnitudes ranging from Mw 5.9 to Mw 7.8. Estimates of
the rupture length are available for all events; for a few events,
the rupture width could not be constrained, hence the databases available for rupture width and rupture area are somewhat smaller.

REGRESSION
The average values compiled in the database described above
were used as input for regression analyses using ordinary least-

squares regression. For the relations between rupture dimensions (L, W, A) and moment magnitude (Mw), the functional
form adopted was the same as in previous studies (Wells and
Coppersmith 1994; Mai and Beroza 2000):
log 10 ( X )= a + bM W (1)

and
M W = a + b log 10 ( X ) (2)

where X is the rupture dimension under consideration (L or W

in km, A in km2).
The best estimates of the coefficients a and b are listed in
Tables 1 and 2 along with their standard errors and the standard deviation () associated with each equation. The value of
the coefficient of multiple determination (R2), which represents
the fraction of the total variation of the predicted variable that
is explained by the regression, is also listed. The last column of
each table shows the number of data points used in each case.
The regression results for the relations predicting rupture
dimensions as a function of Mw (Equation 1) are shown in
Figure 2, along with the data used in the regression, and 95%
confidence intervals on the mean. These results show a good
agreement of the data with a log-linear model, also reflected
in the high R 2 values, most of which are greater than 0.8. The
somewhat poorer fit observed for the log10(W)Mw relation
for interface events may be a consequence of the dependence
of W on the dip angle of the interface. The values of range
for these equations are comparable to, if on average somewhat
larger than, the values found for relations for crustal earthquakes. The very small value of for the log10(W) Mw for the
intraslab dataset is likely to reflect undersampling due to the
small size of the dataset available, and is not recommended for
use in applications where the uncertainty associated with the
scaling relation is considered explicitly.
Figure 2 also shows the best-fit line that would be obtained
by assuming self-similar scaling (i.e., force the coefficient b in
Equation 1 to 0.5 for L and W, and to 1.0 for A, to reflect direct
proportionality between seismic moment and rupture area.
Comparison of these lines with the 95% confidence intervals
show that the hypothesis of self-similar scaling can be rejected
at the 95% confidence level for both the log10(L) Mw and
log10(W)Mw relations for interface events; although it cannot
be rejected for the log10(A)Mw relation for interface events, it
would appear that this is due to a compensating effect between
the deviations of the log10(L)Mw and log10(W)Mw from
self-similar scaling, with the former having a steeper slope
than expected for self-similar scaling (b=0.585) and the latter having a gentler slope (b=0.351). For intraslab events, selfsimilarity can be rejected at the 95% confidence level only for
the log10(W)Mw relation, although it is noteworthy that the
slopes for all three relations are very similar to their interface
counterparts. The observed departure from self-similarity may

Seismological Research Letters Volume 81, Number 6 November/December 2010 943

Henry & Das (2001)

Fujii & Matsu'ura (2000)

Individual studies

Interface

102

MW

Interface

103

102

101
106

101

10

W (km)

103

102

10

10

10

MW

Intraslab

102

MW

101

10

106

Interface

104

104

MW

Intraslab

A (km2)

105

A (km2)

105

103

103

102
101

W (km)

101

Intraslab

L (km)

103

L (km)

103

SRCMOD (Mai, 2004; 2007)

102
6

MW

101

10

MW

Figure 1. Datasets from which the average values of rupture dimensions and moment magnitude used in the regression analysis
were derived.

TABLE 1
Regression results for relations between rupture dimensions, rupture area, and moment magnitude, for interface events.
s.e. denotes the standard error of the coefficient under consideration, R 2 the coefficient of multiple determination, and N the
total number of points used in the regression.
log10 (L) = a+b Mw
log10 (W ) = a+b Mw
log10 (A) = a+b Mw
Mw = a+b log10 (L)
Mw = a+b log10 (W )
Mw = a+b log10 (A)

s.e. (a)

s.e. (b)

R2

2.477
0.882
3.476
4.868
4.410
4.441

0.222
0.226
0.397
0.141
0.277
0.179

0.585
0.351
0.952
1.392
1.805
0.846

0.029
0.029
0.051
0.069
0.151
0.046

0.180
0.173
0.304
0.277
0.392
0.286

0.814
0.634
0.805
0.814
0.634
0.805

95
85
85
95
85
85

944 Seismological Research Letters Volume 81, Number 6 November/December 2010

TABLE 2
Regression results for relations between rupture dimensions, rupture area, and moment magnitude, for intraslab events.
s.e. denotes the standard error of the coefficient under consideration, R 2 the coefficient of multiple determination, and N the
total number of points used in the regression.
log10 (L) = a+b Mw
log10 (W ) = a+b Mw
log10 (A) = a+b Mw
Mw = a+b log10 (L)
Mw = a+b log10 (W )
Mw = a+b log10 (A)

s.e. (a)

s.e. (b)

R2

2.350
1.058
3.225
4.725
3.407
4.054

0.453
0.217
0.598
0.274
0.317
0.288

0.562
0.356
0.890
1.445
2.511
0.981

0.064
0.031
0.085
0.164
0.217
0.093

0.146
0.067
0.184
0.234
0.178
0.193

0.813
0.893
0.874
0.813
0.893
0.874

20
18
18
20
18
18

Interface

104

L (km)

103

L (km)

103
102

102

101
1

Intraslab

104

101

MW

103

103

102

102

101

101

MW

MW

105

105

A (km2)

106

A (km2)

106

104

104

103
102

W (km)

104

W (km)

104

MW

103

MW

102

MW

Figure 2. Regression results for the prediction of rupture dimensions as a function of moment magnitude. The dashed lines indicate
the 95% confidence intervals for the mean, and the heavy gray line indicates the best fit when self-similar scaling is assumed. The
values shown for the individual data points are averaged over all models in the database in the case of multiple models being available
for the same event.

Seismological Research Letters Volume 81, Number 6 November/December 2010 945

have implications for source scaling studies, where the use of a

self-similar model will lead to linear dimensions for interface
events that are in disagreement with observations, even though
the rupture area would be consistent.
Figures 3, 4, and 5 compare the relations derived in this
study with the equivalent relations of Wells and Coppersmith
(1994), Mai and Beroza (2000), and Somerville et al. (1999,
2002), which are predominantly derived from crustal earthquake data, with the exception of Somerville et al. (2002).
The comparison highlights a clear pattern of comparable
lengths to crustal events but greater widths, leading to greater
rupture areas, consistent with the finding of Somerville et al.
(2002). The scaling of rupture length with magnitude is very
similar for interface and intraslab events. An important result,
in the opinion of the authors, is the finding that average rupture
widths for intraslab events are smaller by about 30% than those
of interface events, but the rate of increase with magnitude
(slope of the relation) is similar for both types of events and
broadly in agreement with that of the Wells and Coppersmith
(1994) relation for all data. Smaller rupture widths for intraslab events compared to interface events would be expected
from the geometry of the subducting slab, whose thickness will
limit the width of intraslab events. Furthermore, high values of
stress drop have been observed for several intraslab events (e.g.,
Choy and Boatwright 1995; Choy and Kirby 2004; Morikawa
and Sasatani 2004). However, it remains unclear whether these
high values of stress drop are a cause or a consequence of the
104

Wells and Coppersmith (1994) - Crustal, all data

Wells and Coppersmith (1994) - Crustal, reverse
Wells and Coppersmith (1994) - Crustal, normal
Mai and Beroza (2000) - Mainly crustal, all data
Mai and Beroza (2000) - Mainly crustal, dip-slip events
Mai and Beroza (2000) - Mainly crustal, all data, effective length
Mai and Beroza (2000) - Mainly crustal, dip-slip events, effective length
This study - Subduction interface
This study - Subduction intraslab

103

Rupture Length (km)

small rupture extent, and even whether a causal relation exists

between these two physical phenomena.
In terms of rupture area, the intraslab events have a
similar scaling to crustal events according to the Wells and
Coppersmith (1994) relations, while interface events tend to
have larger areas by a factor of up to 2 which increases with
magnitude. The predicted areas found in the present study
are, however, smaller than those predicted by the relations of
Somerville et al. (2002) and Mai and Beroza (2000) for dipslip events, which appear to converge at large magnitudes. Since
both these studies are based on a limited number of events
(seven to eight events), this could reflect a sampling effect. Note
that for events with Mw7.0, the relation for interface events
derived in the present study gives similar results to the Mai and
Beroza (2000) relation for dip-slip events.
The scaling of the aspect ratio L:W has also been investigated. For crustal events, a power-law relation has been proposed by Chiou and Youngs (2006) based on the database used
in the Next Generation Attenuation (NGA) project (Power
et al. 2008). The relatively high value of the exponent in the
power-law (b=3.097) for the Chiou and Youngs (2006) relations leads to very large values when these relations are extended
beyond Mw 8.0. Closer examination of the data used by Chiou
and Youngs (2006) reveals that this behavior is controlled by
large strike-slip earthquakes (particularly the largest three with
aspect ratios ranging from 6 to 20). Fitting a similar power-law
relation to the dataset compiled in the present study reveals
that the aspect ratios of subduction earthquakes also appear to

102

101

10

Moment Magnitude, Mw

Figure 3. Comparison of the log10 (L)-Mw relation with existing relations derived predominantly from data from crustal earthquakes
(dashed when extended beyond the limits of the underlying dataset).

946 Seismological Research Letters Volume 81, Number 6 November/December 2010

103

Wells and Coppersmith (1994) - Crustal, all data

Wells and Coppersmith (1994) - Crustal, reverse
Wells and Coppersmith (1994) - Crustal, normal
Mai and Beroza (2000) - Mainly crustal, all data
Mai and Beroza (2000) - Mainly crustal, dip-slip events
Mai and Beroza (2000) - Mainly crustal, all data, effective width
Mai and Beroza (2000) - Mainly crustal, dip-slip events, effective width
This study - Subduction interface
This study - Subduction intraslab

Rupture Width (km)

102

101

10

Moment Magnitude, Mw

Figure 4. Comparison of the log10 (W )-Mw relation with existing relations derived predominantly from data from crustal earthquakes
(dashed when extended beyond the limits of the underlying dataset).
107

Wells and Coppersmith (1994) - Crustal, all data

Wells and Coppersmith (1994) - Crustal, reverse
Wells and Coppersmith (1994) - Crustal, normal
Mai and Beroza (2000) - Mainly crustal, all data
Mai and Beroza (2000) - Mainly crustal, dip-slip events
Mai and Beroza (2000) - Mainly crustal, all data, effective area
Mai and Beroza (2000) - Mainly crustal, dip-slip events, effective area
Somerville et al. (2002) - Subduction
Somerville et al. (1999) - Crustal
This study - Subduction interface
This study - Subduction intraslab

106

Rupture Area (km )

105

104

103

102

101

10

Moment Magnitude, Mw

Figure 5. Comparison of the log10 (A)-Mw relation with existing relations derived predominantly from data from crustal earthquakes,
and the relation derived for subduction earthquakes by Somerville et al. (2002). The relations are shown using a dashed line when they
are extended beyond the limits of the underlying dataset.

Seismological Research Letters Volume 81, Number 6 November/December 2010 947

TABLE 3
Comparison of the rupture dimensions predicted for an Mw 8.0 interface event by various scaling relations. The number in
brackets indicates the ratio between the value predicted by the relation derived in the present study, and that estimated by
the relation under consideration.
L (km)
This studyInterface
Wells and Coppersmith (1994)All
Wells and Coppersmith (1994)Reverse
Mai and Beroza (2000)All
Mai and Beroza (2000)Dip-slip
Somerville et al. (2002)

160
[1.00]
191
[0.84]
166
[0.96]
147
[1.09]
195
[0.82]

A (km 2)

W (km)
85
[1.00]
35
[2.38]
47
[1.81]
67
[1.27]
104
[0.81]

13734
[1.00]
6166
[2.23]
7079
[1.94]
10765
[1.28]
20207
[0.68]
26062
[0.53]

TABLE 4
Comparison of the Mw values predicted for a given rupture lengths by various scaling relations.
This studyInterface
Wells and Coppersmith (1994)All
Wells and Coppersmith (1994)Reverse

increase with magnitude, but with a gentler slope. Observed

values (averaged over alternative models) are in general less
than 3, and less than 4 for great (Mw>8.0) earthquakes. While
inslab strike-slip earthquakes sometimes occur, they are generally smaller in magnitude than the crustal events included in
the dataset used by Chiou and Youngs (2006). This difference
in styles-of-faulting is likely to contribute to the observed differences in the scaling of the aspect ratio for crustal and subduction events. The fitted power-law relations are, however,
less well-constrained than the previously derived equations for
L, W, and A, particularly for the intraslab dataset. It therefore
appears preferable to use the well-constrained relations for L
and W as a function of Mw to define the extent of the rupture
area when only magnitude information is available. In cases
where independent estimates of both Mw and A are available,
it is recommended to use the better-constrained relation for L
and infer W from the ratio A:L.
In order to illustrate the differences between the relations
derived herein and previously derived relations, Tables 3 and
4 present the values predicted using various relations for two
scenario applications. In Table 3, the values of L, W, and A
calculated for an Mw 8.0 event are presented. The results show
that the difference in rupture dimensions can be up to a factor
of the order of 2.4. Conversely, Table 4 presents the estimates
of moment magnitude that would be obtained from rupture
lengths of 50 km, 100 km, and 200 km. Only the Wells and
Coppersmith (1994) relations are used in this comparison
because the other studies do not provide coefficients for Mw

L=50 km

L=100 km

L=200 km

7.23
7.05
6.90

7.65
7.40
7.24

8.07
7.75
7.58

as a function of rupture dimensions. Differences of up to 0.5

Mw units are observed, and the discrepancy between the values predicted by the relations derived in the present study and
the Wells and Coppersmith (1994) relations increases with
increasing rupture length (and hence magnitude). These results
illustrate that using the Wells and Coppersmith (1994) relations to estimate the magnitude corresponding to a given rupture length will result in underestimation of the moment magnitude for large subduction interface events.

CONCLUSIONS
Source scaling relations to estimate the dimensions of the
rupture of interface and intraslab earthquakes at subduction
zones based on their moment magnitude have been derived.
The results show significant differences in scaling compared to
relations for crustal relations, in particular in terms of rupture
width and hence rupture area and aspect ratio.
Rupture lengths, on the other hand, are broadly comparable to the subsurface rupture lengths of crustal events of similar
magnitude. Rupture widths of intraslab events have also been
found to be on average 30% smaller for intraslab events than
for interface events of the same magnitude. These relations
reveal a departure from self-similar scaling, particularly noticeable for interface events. In combination with the differences
in scaling coefficients, this indicates that the use of equations
derived from crustal events is probably not appropriate for use
to predict the rupture dimensions of subduction-zone events.

948 Seismological Research Letters Volume 81, Number 6 November/December 2010

The scaling relations herein should hopefully prove useful

tools for studies concerned specifically with the source characteristics and ground motions of subduction-zone events.

POSTSCRIPT
At the stage of proof checking of this paper, it came to our
attention that another set of scaling relationships for subduction earthquakes has been produced by a team at the University
of Potsdam (Blaser et al. 2010), and we would like to alert the
reader to that model as well since this alternative provides a
means of addressing epistemic uncertainty in such empirical
relationships between magnitude and rupture dimensions.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The work presented here was considerably facilitated by the
efforts of Martin Mai and co-workers in collating a database
of uniformly determined parameters of slip models, and by the
willingness of the authors of these and other such models to
making digital versions of their slip models openly available.
The second author was funded by the Alan program of the
European Union, as well as the Colfuturo program; this financial support is gratefully acknowledged. The authors further
wish to thank Martin Mai, two anonymous reviewers, as well
as Seismological Research Letters Editor Luciana Astiz, whose
insightful comments on the manuscript led to considerable
improvements.

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Seismology Unit
Council for Geoscience
Private Bag X112
Pretoria 0001, South Africa

fstrasser@geoscience.org.za

(F. O. S.)

950 Seismological Research Letters Volume 81, Number 6 November/December 2010