We were obliged to prepare a collection of technical material to support the keynote address at the
June 2009 China Cross-Straits Symposium hosted in Fuzhou, China. At that time our primary interest
was the economic consequences of a major marine earthquake and subsequent tsunamis. We were
somewhat surprised that as far as damage to portions of Taiwan and China along the Taiwan Strait it
did not matter a great deal if the tsunami flowed northward from Vietnam or southward from Korea.
In terms of a tsunami originating to the east we were more concerned with potential damage to the
Tokyo metropolitan area. As fate would have it, we were pleased to see that our latest attempts to do
statistical predictions did produce a high probability of a Richter 7.5 or greater event after an
anomalous swarm of Richter 5 events east of Honshu. The results asserted less than a 1% chance of a
Richter 8.8 or stronger event. Planet Earth had other ideas.
June 2009 China Cross-Straits Symposium hosted in Fuzhou, China. At that time our primary interest
was the economic consequences of a major marine earthquake and subsequent tsunamis. We were
somewhat surprised that as far as damage to portions of Taiwan and China along the Taiwan Strait it
did not matter a great deal if the tsunami flowed northward from Vietnam or southward from Korea.
In terms of a tsunami originating to the east we were more concerned with potential damage to the
Tokyo metropolitan area. As fate would have it, we were pleased to see that our latest attempts to do
statistical predictions did produce a high probability of a Richter 7.5 or greater event after an
anomalous swarm of Richter 5 events east of Honshu. The results asserted less than a 1% chance of a
Richter 8.8 or stronger event. Planet Earth had other ideas.
