| Earthquakes are among the most devastating natural events faced by society. In 2011, just two events, the magnitude 6.3 earthquake in Christcurch New Zealand on February 22, and the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake off the coast of Japan on March 11, caused a combined total of ;In this dissertation I discuss three areas of earthquake science. The first is an overview of scaling behavior in a variety of complex systems, both models and natural systems. The focus of this area is to understand how this scaling behavior breaks down. The second is a description of the development and testing of an earthquake simulator called Virtual California designed to extend the observed catalog of earthquakes in California. This simulator uses novel techniques borrowed from statistical physics to enable the modeling of large fault systems over long periods of time. The third is an evaluation of existing earthquake forecasts, which focuses on the Regional Earthquake Likelihood Models (RELM) test: the first competitive test of earthquake forecasts in California. |
