Strength statistics and the distribution of earthquake interevent times

► We link crustal shear strength statistics with the earthquake interevent times distribution. ► We propose a physical mechanism for Weibull and log-Weibull interevent times distributions. ► We connect the Weibull strength modulus of the Earth's crust to the modulus of seismic interevent times. ► We link Weibull time scale parameters across different magnitude thresholds.