Hi Chris,

As GPS is relatively new and certainly newer than Helocene or Quaternary times in data gathering, does that mean that data was loaded to account for the same period of time for quakes on those faults?

You gotta help me out here because my mind is saying question,question! In the real physical sense of things, you can trench through faults and determine approximately when large earthquakes occurred in a given area and chart the direction of movement the waves took at that time. But when you are looking at GPS, only being +/- 30 years old, how can you make a proper comparison with an earthquake that occurred in 1857 for example?

I would think that one has to account for new movement which is occurring now, which the GPS is measuring, which may be in opposition to prior earthquakes occurring thousands of years ago.

Thus if you imagine the SAF and an earthquake occurred a thousand years ago and it was an 8.0 and the ground shifted NW in a strike slip event, does it not preclude an earthquake occurring near the same location, yet shifting SW from a thrust event for example? Can one account for variances in movement due to types of events? Or is everything the way it is now and should one assume that it will always be that way?

Thanks for sharing part of your paper. It's very interesting and thought provoking.

Petra