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Forecast of Large Earthquakes Through Semi-periodicity Analysis of Labeled Point Processes

Semi-Periodicity Analysis of Large Earthquakes

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Abstract

Large earthquakes have semi-periodic behavior as a result of critically self-organized processes of stress accumulation and release in seismogenic regions. Hence, large earthquakes in a given region constitute semi-periodic sequences with recurrence times varying slightly from periodicity. In previous papers, it has been shown that it is possible to identify these sequences through Fourier analysis of the occurrence time series of large earthquakes from a given region, by realizing that not all earthquakes in the region need belong to the same sequence, since there can be more than one process of stress accumulation and release in the region. Sequence identification can be used to forecast earthquake occurrence with well determined confidence bounds. This paper presents improvements on the above mentioned sequence identification and forecasting method: the influence of earthquake size on the spectral analysis, and its importance in semi-periodic events identification are considered, which means that earthquake occurrence times are treated as a labeled point process; a revised estimation of non-randomness probability is used; a better estimation of appropriate upper limit uncertainties to use in forecasts is introduced; and the use of Bayesian analysis to evaluate the posterior forecast performance is applied. This improved method was successfully tested on synthetic data and subsequently applied to real data from some specific regions. As an example of application, we show the analysis of data from the northeastern Japan Arc region, in which one semi-periodic sequence of four earthquakes with M ≥ 8.0, having high non-randomness probability was identified. We compare the results of this analysis with those of the unlabeled point process analysis.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by CONACyT Grant 222795 and CONACyT scholarship 242919 (C. Quinteros). Many thanks to Sergio Arregui for help with maps. Our sincere thanks to two anonymous reviewers and to Editor A. Kijko.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Seismology Department, CICESE, Carretera Tijuana-Ensenada 3918, 22860, Ensenada, BC, Mexico

    C. B. Quinteros Cartaya, F. A. Nava Pichardo, E. Glowacka & E. Gómez Treviño

  2. Division of Applied Sciences and Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

    R. Dmowska

  3. Geophysics Department, Funvisis, Prolongación Calle Mara, Qta Funvisis, El Llanito, Caracas, 1070, Venezuela

    C. B. Quinteros Cartaya

Authors
  1. C. B. Quinteros Cartaya
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  2. F. A. Nava Pichardo
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  3. E. Glowacka
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  4. E. Gómez Treviño
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  5. R. Dmowska
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Correspondence to C. B. Quinteros Cartaya.

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Quinteros Cartaya, C., Nava Pichardo, F., Glowacka, E. et al. Forecast of Large Earthquakes Through Semi-periodicity Analysis of Labeled Point Processes. Pure Appl. Geophys. 173, 2571–2585 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-016-1338-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-016-1338-4

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