Early warning systems underestimate magnitude of large earthquakes

Scientists seek to create reliable early warning systems that accurately estimate the magnitude of an earthquake within the first seconds of rupture. In this paper published by the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, authors S. Murphy of University College Dublin, Ireland and S. Nielsen of the Instituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Roma, Italy look at the idea that an earthquake's final size can be determined during its initiation, rather than something that only becomes apparent at the end of the rupture. They found that, while this may be true over a small range of earthquake sizes, it is unlikely to hold for the larger magnitudes, limiting its applicability for early warning systems...

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