This thesis is a probabilistic seismic analysis that explores the questions about earthquakes in the Boston area that are most important to emergency management professionals, government officials, and citizens: What is the probability of a particular amount of economic and/or social loss occurring in Downtown Boston due to an earthquake in or near Boston?

All probabilistic seismic hazard analyses are subject to great uncertainty. Slight variations regarding the inputs into the hazard analysis can result in large variations in estimated losses and associated probabilities of exceedance. This study is an in depth analysis of the uncertainties in loss estimates and associated probabilities of exceedance resulting from variations in locations of potential earthquakes, recurrence rates of earthquakes, assumed maximum magnitude, attenuation relationships, and regional soil conditions.

The results of this study show that for plausible values of the input parameters, there is a probability of about 0.001 to 0.01 that downtown Boston will experience an earthquake causing about $2B total economic loss some time over the next 50 years. Also, the range of total economic loss that downtown Boston can expect at a probability level of 0.001 over the next 50 years is between about $2B and about $5B.