Optical Offsets 7To determine the co-seismic horizontal displacement field due to the Gorkha earthquake, we use optical 8 image correlation to measure the displacement of pixels between pre-and post-earthquake satellite im-9 ages. We are able to resolve sub-pixel displacements of less than 1/15th of the Landsat8 pixel resolu-10 tion (i.e. < 1 m) using the COSI-Corr software package images, which helps to increase the signal-to-noise ratio, (4) the deformation field is resolved perpendicular to 16 the look angle (i.e. the horizontal plane for nadir images), thereby providing measurements complementary 17to InSAR (which is sensitive to vertical displacements), (5) the nadir look angle is insensitive to topographic 18 residuals produced during orthorectification of the satellite images (such residuals are produced when a lower 19 resolution digital elevation model, DEM, is used during the orthorectification process), and (5) Landsat8 20 images are freely available from the USGS as an orthorectified product -see 5 for additional details. 21Landsat8 images are typically acquired at 10am each morning. Consequently, the illumination charac-22 teristics (i.e. shadows) vary in every image acquired throughout the year according to the position of the 23 sun. Because shadows produce sharp edges in satellite images, they strongly influence the correlation. There-24 fore, to reduce the effect of differing shadows biasing the displacement field, we correlate Landsat8 images 25 acquired at a similar time of year, thereby yielding images with similar illumination characteristics (i.e. sun 26 azimuth and elevation). In addition to having similar illumination characteristics, we also require images with 27 minimal cloud cover. From the Landsat8 archive, we found two suitable images from the (pre-earthquake) 2813th May 2014 (sun azimuth: 109• , sun elevation: 68

We determine the slip rate and pattern of interseismic coupling on the Main Himalayan Thrust along the entire Himalayan arc based on a compilation of geodetic, interferometric synthetic aperture radar, and microseismicity data. We show that convergence is perpendicular to the arc and increases eastwards from 13.3 ± 1.7 mm/yr to 21.2 ± 2.0 mm/yr. These rates are comparable to geological and geomorphic estimates, indicating an essentially elastic geodetic surface strain. The interseismic uplift rate predicted from the coupling model closely mimics the topography, suggesting that a small percentage of the interseismic strain is permanent. We find that the fault is fully locked along its complete length over about 100 km width. We don't find any resolvable aseismic barrier that could affect the seismic segmentation of the arc and limit the along‐strike propagation of seismic ruptures. The moment deficit builds up at a rate of 15.1 ± 1 × 1019 N m/yr for the entire length of the Himalaya.

The Himalayan arc produced the largest known continental earthquake, the Mw ≈ 8.7 Assam earthquake of 1950, but how frequently and where else in the Himalaya such large‐magnitude earthquakes occur is not known. Paleoseismic evidence for coseismic ruptures at the front of the Himalaya with 15 to 30 m of slip suggests even larger events in medieval times, but this inference is debated. Here we estimate the frequency and magnitude of the largest earthquake in the Himalaya needed so that the moment released by seismicity balances the deficit of moment derived from measurements of geodetic strain. Assuming one third of the moment buildup is released aseismically and the earthquakes roughly follow a Gutenberg‐Richter distribution, we find that Mw > 9.0 events are needed with a confidence level of at least 60% and must return approximately once per 800 years on average.

The largely amagmatic western branch of the East African Rift System (EARS) has been noted for unusually deep earthquakes (≥25 km), long normal faults (∼100 km) and wide grabens (∼50 km) (e.g., Craig et al., 2011;Ebinger et al., 1993;J. Jackson & Blenkinsop, 1997). The largest known normal-faulting continental earthquake, 1910 Ruwka M7.4 earthquake, occurred along the 180 km long Kanda Fault (Vittori et al., 1997) in this region. These observations have been used to hypothesize that the lithosphere here is particularly cold and strong, leading to a large elastic thickness, which controls other parameters such as

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