What is the likelihood of a large earthquake at location X?
Our analyses do not answer your question as stated, “probability of large earthquake at a location,” but in a more suitable manner for safety. Danger comes, not only from large earthquakes AT a location, but also large earthquakes further away, and close, smaller earthquakes. Inasmuch as smaller earthquakes are more likely to occur, some attention has to be paid to the contribution to hazard from these events, too. By focusing on GROUND SHAKING caused by earthquakes of all magnitudes and distances from the site, rather than the size of the earthquake “at” a site, we get a truer picture of the hazard. The maps at our web site, National Seismic Hazard Mapping, give a good impression of overall relative earthquake ground motion shaking hazard for various locations in the vicinity of the locations you are interested. You can see which locations look more or less hazardous than others. More particularly, our maps give the probability of various levels of ground motion being exceeded in 50 y
