More Megaquakes on the Way?That Depends on Your Statistics

摘要

Everyone agrees that these are geophysically unsettled times. Lately, the world has been rocked by more than its usual share of the biggest earthquakes ever accurately recorded: the magnitude-9.0 "megaquake" that just struck off Japan; another one that hit off Indo-nesia 6 years ago; and sandwiched between them, the great magnitude-8.8 Chilean quake of 2010. Before these three, however, nothing like them had been seen for 40 years.