Abstract
Continental transforms constitute only a few of the world's plate boundaries and do not produce the largest earthquakes. Yet they are the tectonic underpinning of some of the most attractive and densely populated coastal environments. As a result, they have disproportionally contributed to catastrophic earthquakes. The most recent example is the M = 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti on 12 January 2010, killing at least 100,000 people, by some reports.Because of concern for their earthquakes, continental transforms–particularly California's San Andreas Fault and Turkey's North Anatolian fault–have been intensely studied. Nonetheless, the link between the largest and most dangerous earthquakes and fault segments along transforms remains elusive. A better understanding of the structural singularities bounding these segments, particularly the subsurface nature of basins along transform faults, may clarify why some of them stop earthquake ruptures while others do not.
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