Nice article, thanks Penny. A couple of thoughts. Yes, logically the hazard closer to Tokyo has increased. After the 1999 quakes in Turkey on the North Anatolia fault there were publications that put a very high hazard of the seismic gap in Marmara Sea breaking. But, it has been 12 1/2 years and nothing. There is nothing wrong with the papers; they gave probabilities for the next 30 years after 1999, or after the date they were written, probably in the 60+ %. So, hopefully Tokyo will have decades, and it will be a M8, not a M9. But, they should plan for a M9, as that could happen any time in the next 1000 years.

The other is that we don't understand why the giant young anticlinal trend have bene growing out in the outer California Borderland for the last 3.7 million years (De Hoogh 2012 thesis Cal State Long Beach, working with Nicholson, Sorlien, Francis). Is it growing above regional thrust faults as proposed in unpublished work by Davis and Namson 1994 USGS NEHRP report? Could there be a M8 thrust quake with tsunami beneath offshore southern California? Maybe very rare...every few thousand years? I know as much about this as anyone and I can't say "not possible".

Chris