scholarly journals Masking of earthquake triggering behavior by a high background rate and implications for epidemic-type aftershock sequence inversions

2011 ◽  
Vol 116 (B3) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Touati ◽  
M. Naylor ◽  
I. G. Main ◽  
M. Christie
Keyword(s):  
Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Earthquake Triggering ◽  
Background Rate ◽  
High Background ◽  
Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence

Statistical Monitoring and Early Forecasting of the Earthquake Sequence: Case Studies after the 2019 M 6.4 Searles Valley Earthquake, California

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 (4) ◽  
pp. 1781-1798 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yosihiko Ogata ◽  
Takahiro Omi
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Seismic Activity ◽  
Southern California ◽  
Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Earthquake Sequence ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Probability Forecast ◽  
Background Rate ◽  
High Background

ABSTRACT This study considers the possible implementation of the operational short-term forecasting, and analysis of earthquake occurrences using a real-time hypocenter catalog of ongoing seismic activity, by reviewing case studies of the aftershocks of the Mw 6.4 Searles Valley earthquake that occurred before the Mw 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake. First, the short-term prediction of spatiotemporal activity is required in real time along with the background seismic activity over a wide region to obtain practical probabilities of large earthquakes; snapshots from the continuous forecasts during the Searles Valley and Ridgecrest earthquake sequence are included to monitor the growth and migration of seismic activity over time. We found that the area in and around the rupture zone in southern California had a very high background rate. Second, we need to evaluate whether a first strong earthquake may be the foreshock for a further large earthquake; the rupture region in southern California had one of the highest such probabilities. Third, short-term probability forecast of early aftershocks are much desired despite the difficulties with data acquisition. The aftershock sequence of the Mw 6.4 Searles Valley event was found to significantly increase the probability of a larger earthquake, as seen in the foreshock sequence of the 2016 MJMA 7.4 Kumamoto, Japan, earthquake. Finally, detrending the temporal activity of all the aftershocks by stretching and shrinking the ordinary time scale according to the rate given by the Omori–Utsu formula or the epidemic-type aftershock sequence model, we observe the spatiotemporal occurrences in which seismicity patterns may be abnormal, such as relative quiescence, relative activation, or migrating activity. Such anomalies should be recorded and listed for the future evaluation of the probability of a possible precursor for a large aftershock or a new rupture nearby. An example of such anomalies in the aftershocks before the Mw 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake is considered.

Background Seismicity before and after the 1976 Ms 7.8 Tangshan Earthquake: Is Its Aftershock Sequence Still Continuing?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yue Liu ◽  
Jiancang Zhuang ◽  
Changsheng Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Tangshan Earthquake ◽  
Aftershock Activity ◽  
Background Rate ◽  
Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Aftershock Sequences ◽  
Background Seismicity ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Large Earthquakes ◽  
Current Stage

Abstract The aftershock zone of the 1976 Ms 7.8 Tangshan, China, earthquake remains seismically active, experiencing moderate events such as the 5 December 2019 Ms 4.5 Fengnan event. It is still debated whether aftershock sequences following large earthquakes in low-seismicity continental regions can persist for several centuries. To understand the current stage of the Tangshan aftershock sequence, we analyze the sequence record and separate background seismicity from the triggering effect using a finite-source epidemic-type aftershock sequence model. Our results show that the background rate notably decreases after the mainshock. The estimated probability that the most recent 5 December 2019 Ms 4.5 Fengnan District, Tangshan, earthquake is a background event is 50.6%. This indicates that the contemporary seismicity in the Tangshan aftershock zone can be characterized as a transition from aftershock activity to background seismicity. Although the aftershock sequence is still active in the Tangshan region, it is overridden by background seismicity.

scholarly journals The Relevance of Foreshocks in Earthquake Triggering: A Statistical Study

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenio Lippiello ◽  
Cataldo Godano ◽  
Lucilla De Arcangelis
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Study ◽  
Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Statistical Features ◽  
Earthquake Triggering ◽  
Etas Model ◽  
Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence ◽  
The One ◽  
Triggering Process ◽  
Large Earthquakes ◽  
Good Agreement

An increase of seismic activity is often observed before large earthquakes. Events responsible for this increase are usually named foreshock and their occurrence probably represents the most reliable precursory pattern. Many foreshocks statistical features can be interpreted in terms of the standard mainshock-to-aftershock triggering process and are recovered in the Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence ETAS model. Here we present a statistical study of instrumental seismic catalogs from four different geographic regions. We focus on some common features of foreshocks in the four catalogs which cannot be reproduced by the ETAS model. In particular we find in instrumental catalogs a significantly larger number of foreshocks than the one predicted by the ETAS model. We show that this foreshock excess cannot be attributed to catalog incompleteness. We therefore propose a generalized formulation of the ETAS model, the ETAFS model, which explicitly includes foreshock occurrence. Statistical features of aftershocks and foreshocks in the ETAFS model are in very good agreement with instrumental results.

The prognostic value of foreshocks - a statistical reevaluation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ester Manganiello ◽  
Marcus Herrmann ◽  
Warner Marzocchi
Keyword(s):  
Physical Process ◽  
Large Earthquake ◽  
Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Earthquake Forecasting ◽  
Earthquake Triggering ◽  
Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Sequence Selection ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Scientific Questions ◽  
Large Earthquakes

<p>The ability to forecast large earthquakes on short time scales is strongly limited by our understanding of the earthquake nucleation process. Foreshocks represent promising seismic signals that may improve earthquake forecasting as they precede many large earthquakes. However, foreshocks can currently only be identified as such after a large earthquake occurred. This inability is because it remains unclear whether foreshocks represent a different physical process than general seismicity (i.e., mainshocks and aftershocks). Several studies compared foreshock occurrence in real and synthetic catalogs, as simulated with a well-established earthquake triggering/forecasting model called Epidemic-Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) that does not discriminate between foreshocks, mainshocks, and aftershocks. Some of these studies show that the spatial distribution of foreshocks encodes information about the subsequent mainshock magnitude and that foreshock activity is significantly higher than predicted by the ETAS model. These findings attribute a unique underlying physical process to foreshocks, making them potentially useful for forecasting large earthquakes. We reinvestigate these scientific questions using high-quality earthquake catalogs and study carefully the influence of subjective parameter choices and catalog artifacts on the results. For instance, we use data from different regions, account for the short-term catalog incompleteness and its spatial variability, and explore different criteria for sequence selection and foreshock definition.</p>

scholarly journals The Relevance of Foreshocks in Earthquake Triggering: A Statistical Study

Entropy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenio Lippiello ◽  
Cataldo Godano ◽  
Lucilla de Arcangelis
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Study ◽  
Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Statistical Features ◽  
Earthquake Triggering ◽  
Etas Model ◽  
Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence ◽  
The One ◽  
Triggering Process ◽  
Large Earthquakes ◽  
Good Agreement

An increase of seismic activity is often observed before large earthquakes. Events responsible for this increase are usually named foreshock and their occurrence probably represents the most reliable precursory pattern. Many foreshocks statistical features can be interpreted in terms of the standard mainshock-to-aftershock triggering process and are recovered in the Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence ETAS model. Here we present a statistical study of instrumental seismic catalogs from four different geographic regions. We focus on some common features of foreshocks in the four catalogs which cannot be reproduced by the ETAS model. In particular we find in instrumental catalogs a significantly larger number of foreshocks than the one predicted by the ETAS model. We show that this foreshock excess cannot be attributed to catalog incompleteness. We therefore propose a generalized formulation of the ETAS model, the ETAFS model, which explicitly includes foreshock occurrence. Statistical features of aftershocks and foreshocks in the ETAFS model are in very good agreement with instrumental results.

scholarly journals Characteristics of seismic activity before and after the 2018 M6.7 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi earthquake

2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Takao Kumazawa ◽  
Yosihiko Ogata ◽  
Hiroshi Tsuruoka
Keyword(s):  
Seismic Activity ◽  
Main Shock ◽  
Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Aftershock Activity ◽  
Background Rate ◽  
Etas Model ◽  
Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Aftershock Sequences ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Largest Aftershock

AbstractWe applied the epidemic type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model, the two-stage ETAS model and the non-stationary ETAS model to investigate the detailed features of the series of earthquake occurrences before and after the M6.7 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi earthquake on 6 September 2018, based on earthquake data from October 1997. First, after the 2003 M8.0 Tokachi-Oki earthquake, seismic activity in the Eastern Iburi region reduced relative to the ETAS model. During this period, the depth ranges of the seismicity were migrating towards shallow depths, where a swarm cluster, including a M5.1 earthquake, finally occurred in the deepest part of the range. This swarm activity was well described by the non-stationary ETAS model until the M6.7 main shock. The aftershocks of the M6.7 earthquake obeyed the ETAS model until the M5.8 largest aftershock, except for a period of several days when small, swarm-like activity was found at the southern end of the aftershock region. However, when we focus on the medium and larger aftershocks, we observed quiescence relative to the ETAS model from 8.6 days after the main shock until the M5.8 largest aftershock. For micro-earthquakes, we further studied the separated aftershock sequences in the naturally divided aftershock volumes. We found that the temporal changes in the background rate and triggering coefficient (aftershock productivity) in respective sub-volumes were in contrast with each other. In particular, relative quiescence was seen in the northern deep zones that includes the M5.8 largest aftershock. Furthermore, changes in the b-values of the whole aftershock activity showed an increasing trend with respect to the logarithm of elapsed time during the entire aftershock period, which is ultimately explained by the spatially different characteristics of the aftershocks.

scholarly journals Short-term earthquake forecasting experiment before and during the L’Aquila (central Italy) seismic sequence of April 2009

2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maura Murru ◽  
Jiancang Zhuang ◽  
Rodolfo Console ◽  
Giuseppe Falcone
Keyword(s):  
Central Italy ◽  
Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Earthquake Forecasting ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Productivity Function ◽  
Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Forecasting Performance ◽  
The One ◽  
Lower Magnitude

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p>In this paper, we compare the forecasting performance of several statistical models, which are used to describe the occurrence process of earthquakes in forecasting the short-term earthquake probabilities during the L’Aquila earthquake sequence in central Italy in 2009. These models include the Proximity to Past Earthquakes (PPE) model and two versions of the Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) model. We used the information gains corresponding to the Poisson and binomial scores to evaluate the performance of these models. It is shown that both ETAS models work better than the PPE model. However, in comparing the two types of ETAS models, the one with the same fixed exponent coefficient (<span>alpha)</span> = 2.3 for both the productivity function and the scaling factor in the spatial response function (ETAS I), performs better in forecasting the active aftershock sequence than the model with different exponent coefficients (ETAS II), when the Poisson score is adopted. ETAS II performs better when a lower magnitude threshold of 2.0 and the binomial score are used. The reason is found to be that the catalog does not have an event of similar magnitude to the L’Aquila mainshock (M<sub>w</sub> 6.3) in the training period (April 16, 2005 to March 15, 2009), and the (<span>alpha)</span>-value is underestimated, thus the forecast seismicity is underestimated when the productivity function is extrapolated to high magnitudes. We also investigate the effect of the inclusion of small events in forecasting larger events. These results suggest that the training catalog used for estimating the model parameters should include earthquakes of magnitudes similar to the mainshock when forecasting seismicity during an aftershock sequence.</p></div></div></div>

The Seismic Hazard Implications of Declustering and Poisson Assumptions Inferred from a Fully Time-Dependent Model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward H. Field ◽  
Kevin R. Milner ◽  
Nicolas Luco
Keyword(s):  
Seismic Hazard ◽  
Poisson Process ◽  
Seismic Hazard Assessment ◽  
Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Time Dependent ◽  
Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Quiet Time ◽  
Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence ◽  
True Time

ABSTRACT We use the Third Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast (UCERF3) epidemic-type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model (UCERF3-ETAS) to evaluate the effects of declustering and Poisson assumptions on seismic hazard estimates. Although declustering is necessary to infer the long-term spatial distribution of earthquake rates, the question is whether it is also necessary to honor the Poisson assumption in classic probabilistic seismic hazard assessment. We use 500,000 yr, M ≥ 2.5 synthetic catalogs to address this question, for which UCERF3-ETAS exhibits realistic spatiotemporal clustering effects (e.g., aftershocks). We find that Gardner and Knopoff (1974) declustering, used in the U.S. Geological Survey seismic hazard models, lowers 2% in 50 yr and risk-targeted ground-motion hazard metrics by about 4% on average (compared with the full time-dependent [TD] model), with the reduction being 5% at 40% in 50 yr ground motions. Keeping all earthquakes and treating them as a Poisson process increases these same hazard metrics by about 3%–12%, on average, due to the removal of relatively quiet time periods in the full TD model. In the interest of model simplification, bias minimization, and consideration of the probabilities of multiple exceedances, we agree with others (Marzocchi and Taroni, 2014) that we are better off keeping aftershocks and treating them as a Poisson process rather than removing them from hazard consideration via declustering. Honoring the true time dependence, however, will likely be important for other hazard and risk metrics, and this study further exemplifies how this can now be evaluated more extensively.

Operational Earthquake Forecasting during the 2019 Ridgecrest, California, Earthquake Sequence with the UCERF3-ETAS Model

2020 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 1567-1578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin R. Milner ◽  
Edward H. Field ◽  
William H. Savran ◽  
Morgan T. Page ◽  
Thomas H. Jordan
Keyword(s):  
High Performance ◽  
Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Ease Of Use ◽  
Earthquake Forecasting ◽  
Earthquake Rupture ◽  
Etas Model ◽  
Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Aftershock Sequences ◽  
High Performance Computing Cluster

Abstract The first Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast, Version 3–epidemic-type aftershock sequence (UCERF3-ETAS) aftershock simulations were running on a high-performance computing cluster within 33 min of the 4 July 2019 M 6.4 Searles Valley earthquake. UCERF3-ETAS, an extension of the third Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast (UCERF3), is the first comprehensive, fault-based, epidemic-type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model. It produces ensembles of synthetic aftershock sequences both on and off explicitly modeled UCERF3 faults to answer a key question repeatedly asked during the Ridgecrest sequence: What are the chances that the earthquake that just occurred will turn out to be the foreshock of an even bigger event? As the sequence unfolded—including one such larger event, the 5 July 2019 M 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake almost 34 hr later—we updated the model with observed aftershocks, finite-rupture estimates, sequence-specific parameters, and alternative UCERF3-ETAS variants. Although configuring and running UCERF3-ETAS at the time of the earthquake was not fully automated, considerable effort had been focused in 2018 on improving model documentation and ease of use with a public GitHub repository, command line tools, and flexible configuration files. These efforts allowed us to quickly respond and efficiently configure new simulations as the sequence evolved. Here, we discuss lessons learned during the Ridgecrest sequence, including sensitivities of fault triggering probabilities to poorly constrained finite-rupture estimates and model assumptions, as well as implications for UCERF3-ETAS operationalization.

A Prototype Operational Earthquake Loss Model for California Based on UCERF3-ETAS – A First Look at Valuation

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 1279-1299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Field ◽  
Keith Porter ◽  
Kevin Milner
Keyword(s):  
Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Earthquake Forecast ◽  
Loss Model ◽  
Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence ◽  
Main Shocks ◽  
Scenario Earthquakes ◽  
Elastic Rebound ◽  
Spatiotemporal Clustering ◽  
Earthquake Loss ◽  
Aftershock Statistics

We present a prototype operational loss model based on UCERF3-ETAS, which is the third Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast with an Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) component. As such, UCERF3-ETAS represents the first earthquake forecast to relax fault segmentation assumptions and to include multi-fault ruptures, elastic-rebound, and spatiotemporal clustering, all of which seem important for generating realistic and useful aftershock statistics. UCERF3-ETAS is nevertheless an approximation of the system, however, so usefulness will vary and potential value needs to be ascertained in the context of each application. We examine this question with respect to statewide loss estimates, exemplifying how risk can be elevated by orders of magnitude due to triggered events following various scenario earthquakes. Two important considerations are the probability gains, relative to loss likelihoods in the absence of main shocks, and the rapid decay of gains with time. Significant uncertainties and model limitations remain, so we hope this paper will inspire similar analyses with respect to other risk metrics to help ascertain whether operationalization of UCERF3-ETAS would be worth the considerable resources required.

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