  Earthquake phenomenology exhibits a number of power law distributions
including the Gutenberg-Richter frequency-size statistics and the Omori law for
aftershock decay rates. In search for a basic model that renders correct
predictions on long spatio-temporal scales, we discuss results associated with
a heterogeneous fault with long range stress-transfer interactions. To better
understand earthquake dynamics we focus on faults with Gutenberg-Richter like
earthquake statistics and develop two universal scaling functions as a stronger
test of the theory against observations than mere scaling exponents that have
large error bars. Universal shape profiles contain crucial information on the
underlying dynamics in a variety of systems. As in magnetic systems, we find
that our analysis for earthquakes provides a good overall agreement between
theory and observations, but with a potential discrepancy in one particular
universal scaling function for moment-rates. The results reveal interesting
connections between the physics of vastly different systems with avalanche
noise.
