Constraints on solar particle events from comparisons of recent events and million-year averages

Several sets of measurements of the fluxes of solar energetic particles (SEPs) above 10 MeV have been used to apply limits to huge solar particle events (SPEs) in the past. Direct measurements of SEPs are used to get event-integrated solar-proton fluences for SPEs since about 1965. Indirect measurements of SEPs in events from 1956 until 1963 have been used with radioactivities measured in lunar rocks to get event-integrated solar-proton fluences for the larger events back to 1956. A cumulative-probability plot of these event-integrated fluences for all energies above 10 MeV shows a fairly smooth trend from fluences of 10{sub 7} protons/cm{sup 2} up to the largest events (3 x 10{sup 10} protons/cm{sup 2}) but there are no events with higher fluences. Activities of radionuclides in the tops of lunar rocks were used to get average fluxes of solar protons for time periods from {approximately} 10{sup 4} to {approximately} 10{sup 7} years, which are similar to those over the last four decades. These proton fluxes from lunar radionuclides indicate that the long-term trend for huge events does not follow the modern trend for event fluences up to {approximately}3 x 10{sup 10} protons/cm{sup 2}, but that huge events (orders of magnitude larger than {approximately}10{sup 11} protons/cm{sup 2}) have been very rare or nonexistent during the last {approximately}10{sup 7} years