Each organization produced a beachball diagram, which is a graphical depiction of the preferred moment tensor solution for the Oct. 31 earthquake. A single glance at a beachball diagram provides a wealth of information to a seasoned seismologist. For the uninitiated, however, even the untrained eye notices that the USGS and gCMT solutions bear great similarity. In those diagrams, the colored regions show curved boundaries in similar positions. The curvature indicates that a single plane cannot explain this earthquake. In comparison, the PHIVOLCS solution, which imposes a single, planar fault, has sharp boundaries in a different location. Credit: Beachballs are those published by USGS, gCMT, and PHIVOLCS.
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