Strange attractor in earthquake swarms near Valsad (Gujarat), India

Valsad district in south Gujarat near the western coast of the peninsular India experienced earthquake swarms since early February 1986. Seismic monitoring through a network of micro earthquake seismographs showed a well concentrated seismic activity over an area of 7 × 10 km2 with the depth of foci extending from 1 to 15 km. A total number of 21,830 earthquakes were recorded during March 1986 to June 1988. The daily frequency of earthquakes for this period was utilized to examine deterministic chaos through evaluation of dimension of strange attractor and Lyapunov exponent. The low dimension of 2.1 for the strange attractor and positive value of the largest Lyapunov exponent suggest chaotic dynamics in Valsad earthquake swarms with at least 3 parameters for earthquake predictability. The results indicate differences in the characteristics of deterministic chaos in intraplate and interplate regions of India.

Characteristics of Foreshocks Occurrence of Onshore Earthquakes In Japan For Mj3.0 To 7.2 Mainshocks

We use the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) earthquake catalogue from 2001 to 2021 to investigate the spatiotemporal distribution of foreshocks for shallow mainshocks (Mj3.0–7.2) that are located onshore of Japan. We find clear peaks for the earlier small earthquakes within 10 days and 3 km prior to the mainshocks, which are considered as our definition of foreshocks. After removing the aftershocks, earthquake swarms and possible earthquakes triggered by the 2011 Mw9.0 Tohoku-oki earthquake, we find that for the 2,066 independent earthquakes, 783 (37.9%) have one or more foreshocks. There is a decreasing trend of foreshock occurrence with mainshock depth. Also, normal faulting earthquakes have higher foreshock occurrence than reverse faulting earthquakes. We calculate the rates of foreshock occurrence as a function of the magnitudes of foreshocks and mainshocks, and we have found no clear trend between the magnitudes of foreshocks and mainshocks.

Revealing 60 years of Earthquake Swarms in the Southern Red Sea, Afar and the Gulf of Aden

Earthquake swarms occur sporadically at divergent plate boundaries but their recurrence over multiple decades and relation to magmatic spreading activity remain poorly understood. Here we study more than 100 earthquake swarms over a 60-year period in the southern Red Sea, Afar, and Gulf of Aden region. We first compiled an earthquake-swarm catalogue by integrating reexamined global and local earthquake catalogues from 1960 to 2017. This yielded 134 earthquake swarms that mainly cluster in 19 different areas in the study region, showing that in most cases swarms recur every few decades in the same area. The swarms exhibit a range of earthquake magnitudes and often include multiple M3 to M5 events with some swarms having occasional larger earthquakes over M6, primarily in southern Afar. Many of the earthquake swarms were clearly associated with rifting events, consisting of magmatic intrusions, surface faulting, and in some cases volcanic eruptions. Together, the swarms suggest that extension at these divergent plate boundaries occurs episodically along <100 km long segments, some of which were previously unrecognized. Within the study region, the Gulf of Aden shows the most frequent swarm activity, followed by Afar and then the southern Red Sea. The results show that the three areas were subject to an increase of earthquake-swarm activity from 2003 to 2013 in the form of three rifting episodes and at least seven volcanic eruptions. We interpret that the most likely controls on temporal variations in earthquake swarm activity are either temporal variations in magma supply, or rifting-induced stress change that trigger clusters of swarms.

The source scaling and seismic productivity of slow slip transients

Slow slip events (SSEs) represent a slow faulting process leading to aseismic strain release often accompanied by seismic tremor or earthquake swarms. The larger SSEs last longer and are often associated with intense and energetic tremor activity, suggesting that aseismic slip controls tremor genesis. A similar pattern has been observed for SSEs that trigger earthquake swarms, although no comparative studies exist on the source parameters of SSEs and tremor or earthquake swarms. We analyze the source scaling of SSEs and associated tremor- or swarm-like seismicity through our newly compiled dataset. We find a correlation between the aseismic and seismic moment release indicating that the shallower SSEs produce larger seismic moment release than deeper SSEs. The scaling may arise from the heterogeneous frictional and rheological properties of faults prone to SSEs and is mainly controlled by temperature. Our results indicate that similar physical phenomena govern tremor and earthquake swarms during SSEs.