Earthquake volume, fault plane area, seismic energy, strain, deformation and related quantities

An effort is made to improve Benioff's method for investigation of strain release in aftershock sequences. The improvement may be summarized as follows: 1. Earthquake volume increases with magnitude, instead of being constant. A relation is given, relating volume to magnitude. 2. A revised energy-magnitude formula is used. 3. The seismic gain ratio, i. e. the ratio between seismic energy and elastic strain energy, probably increases with magnitude, instead of being constant. Likewise, the ratio of fault plane area of the main shock to the vertical section through the aftershock volume increases with magnitude. 4. The seismic energy density, the elastic strain energy density as well as strain are independent of magnitude. 5. The deformation, i. e. the total strain in the aftershock zone, increases with magnitude at the same rate as seismic energy and volume do. As a consequence of these improvements some earlier published strain release characteristics are reconstructed, this time as deformation characteristics instead.