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Seismology

Chasing supershear earthquakes

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In rare and sometimes highly destructive cases, faults rupture faster than the seismic waves generated can travel. A global investigation of earthquake rupture speeds reveals that these events occur much more frequently than previously thought.

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Fig. 1: The global distribution of supershear earthquakes.

Change history

  • 03 November 2022

    In the version of this article initially published, there was an error in Figure 1, where the outlines of plate boundaries were incorrectly shifted rightward. The figure has been updated in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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  1. Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

    Ryo Okuwaki

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  1. Ryo Okuwaki
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Correspondence to Ryo Okuwaki.

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Okuwaki, R. Chasing supershear earthquakes. Nat. Geosci. 15, 863–864 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-01054-6

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