scholarly journals Combining a Locally Restricted Anisotropic Spatial Kernel with an ETAS Incomplete Model for Better Forecasts of the 2019 Ridgecrest Sequence

Author(s):  
Christian Grimm ◽  
Sebastian Hainzl ◽  
Martin Käser ◽  
Helmut Küchenhoff

Abstract Strong earthquakes cause aftershock sequences that are clustered in time according to a power decay law, and in space along their extended rupture, shaping a typically elongate pattern of aftershock locations. A widely used approach to model seismic clustering is the Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) model, that shows three major biases: First, the conventional ETAS approach assumes isotropic spatial triggering, which stands in conflict with observations and geophysical arguments for strong earthquakes. Second, the spatial kernel has unlimited extent, allowing smaller events to exert disproportionate trigger potential over an unrealistically large area. Third, the ETAS model assumes complete event records and neglects inevitable short-term aftershock incompleteness as a consequence of overlapping coda waves. These three effects can substantially bias the parameter estimation and particularly lead to underestimated cluster sizes. In this article, we combine the approach of Grimm (2021), which introduced a generalized anisotropic and locally restricted spatial kernel, with the ETAS-Incomplete (ETASI) time model of Hainzl (2021), to define an ETASI space-time model with flexible spatial kernel that solves the abovementioned shortcomings. We apply different model versions to a triad of forecasting experiments of the 2019 Ridgecrest sequence, and evaluate the prediction quality with respect to cluster size, largest aftershock magnitude and spatial distribution. The new model provides the potential of more realistic simulations of on-going aftershock activity, e.g.~allowing better predictions of the probability and location of a strong, damaging aftershock, which might be beneficial for short term risk assessment and desaster response.

2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Takao Kumazawa ◽  
Yosihiko Ogata ◽  
Hiroshi Tsuruoka

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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 1567-1578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin R. Milner ◽  
Edward H. Field ◽  
William H. Savran ◽  
Morgan T. Page ◽  
Thomas H. Jordan

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.


Author(s):  
G Petrillo ◽  
E Lippiello

Summary The Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) model provides a good description of the post-seismic spatio-temporal clustering of seismicity and is also able to capture some features of the increase of seismic activity caused by foreshocks. Recent results, however, have shown that the number of foreshocks observed in instrumental catalogs is significantly much larger than the one predicted by the ETAS model. Here we show that it is possible to keep an epidemic description of post-seismic activity and, at the same time, to incorporate pre-seismic temporal clustering, related to foreshocks. Taking also into-account the short-term incompleteness of instrumental catalogs, we present a model which achieves very good description of the southern California seismicity both on the aftershock and on the foreshock side. Our results indicate that the existence of a preparatory phase anticipating mainshocks represents the most plausible explanation for the occurrence of foreshocks.


Author(s):  
Yue Liu ◽  
Jiancang Zhuang ◽  
Changsheng Jiang

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.


Author(s):  
Sebastian Hainzl

ABSTRACT The epidemic-type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model is a powerful statistical model to explain and forecast the spatiotemporal evolution of seismicity. However, its parameter estimation can be strongly biased by catalog deficiencies, particularly short-term incompleteness related to missing events in phases of high-seismic activity. Recent studies have shown that these short-term fluctuations of the completeness magnitude can be explained by the blindness of detection algorithms after earthquakes, preventing the detection of events with a smaller magnitude. Based on this assumption, I derive a direct relation between the true and detectable seismicity rate and magnitude distributions, respectively. These relations only include one additional parameter, the so-called blind time Tb, and lead to a closed-form maximum-likelihood formulation to estimate the ETAS parameters directly accounting for varying completeness. Tests using synthetic simulations show that the true parameters can be resolved from incomplete catalogs. Finally, I apply the new model to California’s most prominent mainshock–aftershock sequences in the last decades. The results show that the model leads to superior fits with Tb decreasing with time, indicating improved detection algorithms. The estimated parameters significantly differ from the estimation with the standard approach, indicating higher b-values and larger trigger potentials than previously thought.


2019 ◽  
Vol 220 (2) ◽  
pp. 856-875
Author(s):  
Ourania Mangira ◽  
Rodolfo Console ◽  
Eleftheria Papadimitriou ◽  
Maura Murru ◽  
Vasilios Karakostas

SUMMARY Earthquake clustering in the area of Central Ionian Islands (Greece) is statistically modelled by means of the Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) branching model, which is the most popular among the short-term earthquake clustering models. It is based upon the assumption that an earthquake is not fully related to any other one in particular, but rather to both all previous events, and the background seismicity. The close temporal proximity of the strong ($M \ge 6.0$) events in the study area offers the opportunity to retrospectively test the validity of the ETAS model through the 2014 Kefalonia doublet (Mw 6.1 and Mw 6.0) and the 2015 Lefkada aftershock sequences. The application of a physics-based earthquake simulator to the local fault system produced a simulated catalogue with time, space and magnitude behaviour in line with the observed seismicity. This catalogue is then used for the detection of short-term interactions between both strong and smaller events and the comparison between the two cases. The results show that the suggested clustering model provides reliable forecasts of the aftershock activity. Combining the ETAS model and the simulator code, though, needs to be more deeply examined since the preliminary results show some discrepancy between the estimated model parameters.


2015 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maura Murru ◽  
Jiancang Zhuang ◽  
Rodolfo Console ◽  
Giuseppe Falcone

<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>


2019 ◽  
Vol 219 (3) ◽  
pp. 2148-2164
Author(s):  
A M Lombardi

SUMMARY The operational earthquake forecasting (OEF) is a procedure aimed at informing communities on how seismic hazard changes with time. This can help them live with seismicity and mitigate risk of destructive earthquakes. A successful short-term prediction scheme is not yet produced, but the search for it should not be abandoned. This requires more research on seismogenetic processes and, specifically, inclusion of any information about earthquakes in models, to improve forecast of future events, at any spatio-temporal-magnitude scale. The short- and long-term forecast perspectives of earthquake occurrence followed, up to now, separate paths, involving different data and peculiar models. But actually they are not so different and have common features, being parts of the same physical process. Research on earthquake predictability can help to search for a common path in different forecast perspectives. This study aims to improve the modelling of long-term features of seismicity inside the epidemic type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model, largely used for short-term forecast and OEF procedures. Specifically, a more comprehensive estimation of background seismicity rate inside the ETAS model is attempted, by merging different types of data (seismological instrumental, historical, geological), such that information on faults and on long-term seismicity integrates instrumental data, on which the ETAS models are generally set up. The main finding is that long-term historical seismicity and geological fault data improve the pseudo-prospective forecasts of independent seismicity. The study is divided in three parts. The first consists in models formulation and parameter estimation on recent seismicity of Italy. Specifically, two versions of ETAS model are compared: a ‘standard’, previously published, formulation, only based on instrumental seismicity, and a new version, integrating different types of data for background seismicity estimation. Secondly, a pseudo-prospective test is performed on independent seismicity, both to test the reliability of formulated models and to compare them, in order to identify the best version. Finally, a prospective forecast is made, to point out differences and similarities in predicting future seismicity between two models. This study must be considered in the context of its limitations; anyway, it proves, beyond argument, the usefulness of a more sophisticated estimation of background rate, inside short-term modelling of earthquakes.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eugenio Lippiello ◽  
Giuseppe Petrillo ◽  
Cataldo Godano ◽  
Lucilla de Arcangelis ◽  
Anna Tramelli ◽  
...  

&lt;p&gt;We show that short term post-seismic incompleteness can be interpreted in terms of the overlap of aftershock coda waves. We use this information to develop a novel procedure which gives accurate occurrence probabilities of post-seismic strong ground shaking within 30 minutes after the mainshock. This novel approach uses, as only information, the ground velocity recorded at a single station without requiring that signals are transferred and elaborated by operational units. We will also discuss how this information can be implemented in the Epidemic-Type Aftershock Sequence model in order to reproduce statistical features in time and magnitude of recorded aftershocks.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Main references &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;de Arcangelis L., Godano C. &amp; Lippiello E. (2018) &lt;em&gt;The Overlap of Aftershock Coda Waves and Short-Term Postseismic Forecasting. &lt;/em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, &lt;/strong&gt;123: 5661-5674,doi:10.1029/2018JB015518&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lippiello E., Petrillo G. , Godano G. , Tramelli A., Papadimitriou E. &amp;, Karakostas V. (2019)&lt;em&gt; Forecasting of the first hour aftershocks by means of the perceived magnitude. &lt;/em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Nature Communications&lt;/strong&gt; , 10, 2953, doi:10.1038/s41467-019-10763-3&lt;/p&gt;


1998 ◽  
Vol 88 (6) ◽  
pp. 1580-1587
Author(s):  
Nitzan Rabinowitz ◽  
David M. Steinberg

Abstract Aftershock sequences are studied from three recent strong earthquakes in the Levant: the MW = 7.1 earthquake of 22 November 1995 and the ML = 5.8 earthquake of 3 August 1993, both in the Gulf of Aqaba, and the MW = 6.8 earthquake of 9 October 1996 off the southwest coast of Cyprus. The modified Omori's law provides a good fit to the decay of aftershock activity for both events. The two sequences from the Gulf of Aqaba have rather low p values (0.90 in 1993 and 0.75 in 1995), reflecting slow decay of the aftershock activity. This may be attributed to low heat flow close to the epicenters. For the Cyprus sequence, the p value is 1.09, similar to that of many other sequences around the globe.


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