Seismic data suggests slow slip events may presage larger earthquakes

(Phys.org)—A team of researchers, two from Tohoku University in Japan and two from the University of California in the U.S., has found evidence that suggests that a speedup in small underground deformations may occur prior to larger earthquakes, possibly providing a means for sounding a warning. In their paper published in the journal Science, the team describes how they pored over seismic data that spanned 28 years and which included approximately 6,000 seismic events, and what they found