Geodetic techniques for investigating earthquakes can be extended back to the 1970s.
We measured the co- and post-seismic displacements from the 1978 Tabas earthquake.
We show time-decaying shallow post-seismic afterslip following the 1978 earthquake.
The Tabas fold system may exhibit characteristic slip behaviour.
Such behaviour would require a magnitude Mw 7.3 earthquake every ∼3500 years.