Assessment of time-dependent seismic hazards on segments of active fault, and its problems

Assessment of time-dependent seismic hazards on segments of active fault is one of the important techniques of long-term earthquake forecast for specific locations. It is based on the data from quantitatively seismo-geologic investigation in active faults and expresses seismic hazards of a fault segment with both the earthquake occurrence probability, which increases as the elapsed time increases, and the magnitude predicted. Through summing up and analyzing main technical steps in research of the recent decade, some defects in the current theory and model of this technique are pointed out. For instance, the probabilistic models for recurrence interval are based solely on the quasi-periodic behavior of earthquake recurrence, ignoring behavior’s diversity that possibly exists. Variability of repeated rupture dimensions in various cycles is considered inadequately in fault segmentation research, etc. It is most important for improving the reliability of the result of seismic hazard assessment to reveal actual earthquake recurrence behavior and its generalities, and to update relevant models for evaluating probabilistic earthquake hazard based on the behavior and generalities.