The world's largest and most destructive earthquakes occur on the interface between subducting and overriding plates, with interplate coupling playing an important role in their seismogenesis. Updip from this interface, the outer-rise comprises a broad and gentle upwarping of the oceanic lithosphere just before it descends into the trench. Almost 20 years ago, researchers, showed a correlation between the occurrence of outer-rise earthquakes and interplate thrust events. The improved seismological data and tools currently available enable us to develop an updated and enhanced catalog of outer-rise seismicity, including mechanisms, depths and spectral characteristics, which can be subsequently used to review models and hypotheses concerning these outer-rise events and the deformation of subducting plates. A large number of events have occurred since the earlier catalogs were compiled and, the seismic data quality, coverage and availability have improved significantly. This enables us to better constrain depth, location and focal mechanism through detailed waveform modeling. Using our new catalog, our understanding of the stress evolution within the trench and outer-rise and the relationship between seismic coupling and outer-rise earthquakes can be refined. This work is also a first step towards the development of a new generation of geodynamic models, improving the constraints on the mechanical properties of the lithosphere and the dynamics of the slab where it bends into the subduction zone. Additionally, it examines the relationship of these earthquakes to the structure of the subducting plates, as evidenced by bathymetric and reflection/refraction profiles. Of particular interest is the spatio-temporal behavior of outer-rise seismicity. Although most outer-rise events are tensional, a small number of deeper events are compressional. These compressional earthquakes have been speculated to either precede an interplate thrust, occur in regions which have not experienced an interplate thrust event during the preceding few decades, or occur adjacent to an area which has had interplate slip. The bending stresses and the pull of the subducting slab are probably large relative to regional tectonic stresses or the cyclic stresses associated with seismic coupling. However, these stress perturbations may still trigger events in the outer-rise and may cause the neutral surface (the zero stress boundary between tensional upper plate and compressional lower plate) to shoal significantly. The stress changes following interplate events can thus be viewed as perturbations of the overall dynamics. From these temporal and spatial relationships, it is clear that the state of stress in the outer-rise may change in both time and space in response to interplate coupling. The record of seismicity should reflect these changes and can therefore shed light on the physical processes at work. Of greatest importance is the enhancement of our understanding of the physics of outer-rise deformation. The results will have further implications for several other disciplines. Improved knowledge of the temporal and spatial character of outer-rise seismicity is an important first step towards the development of a new generation of models of subduction zone dynamics. Since some large interplate earthquakes occur close to populated areas or generate tsunamis, compressional outer-rise events as stress build-up indicators may be important for intermediate term earthquake hazard assessment.
