Abstract: This paper takes western China's mainland (20°~50°N, 73°~105°E)as an example, based on the monthly earthquake catalogue of CENC and referring to the Harvard CMT catalogue, chooses 191 earthquakes in China's mainland from January 1, 1990 to December 31, 2005 to compare the apparent stress value σ_app1 which are calculated by using Harvard's seismic moment and magnitude-energy expressions with the apparent stress value σ_app2 which are calculated by using the magnitude experiential expressions only. Based on that, this paper researched the relation between apparent stress anomalous area and macroseismic area through summarizing macroseism M_S≥7 in China's mainland since1970 and graded the R-value according to the macroseism area prediction of ICD yearly prediction report. The result shows that, ① When the magnitude upper limit is fixed, the variance of difference sequence between σ_app1 and σ_app2 increases along with the magnitude lower limit increase. In 3.5 ≤M_S ≤ 6.0 sectors, the fitting degrees of σ_app1 and σ_app2 are better. ② The change and migration of apparent stress anomalous area is possibly the reflection of the change and migration of the remarkable stress variation area in the whole structure stress area. It have many advantages, for example, the picture may directly view, it can be quantified, the prediction of area is limited and so on, which could be used to predict the microseism area. The R-value approximately is 0.35. Finally, this paper discusses the idea on the tendency prediction of macroseism area.

Key words: Apparent stress, Earthquake field, Seismic radiated energy, China's mainland