Abstract
The establishment of a unified earthquake catalog is a basic requirement for attaining a detailed seismological analysis and an improved seismic hazard assessment. Accordingly, the current research paper aims to present a reliable instrumental unified earthquake catalog for the northern part of Algeria. This unified catalog is compiled using regional empirical relationships derived from converting different magnitude scales to an advanced physical-based moment magnitude scale suggested in the recent literature and denoted by Mwg. The regression methodology used in this study is called the New General Orthogonal Regression approach (N.GOR), which was selected since it is the most trustworthy procedure for scaling the magnitudes to Mwg. To highlight the significance of using the N.GOR, the obtained outcomes of the scaling relations were compared with those issued from the conventional general orthogonal regression (GOR) method, which is deemed to be the most dependable methodology used worldwide for magnitude conversion problems. The unified earthquake catalog was assembled from 1954 to 2022. Reliably converting the original magnitudes into homogenized moment magnitude leads to a complete and consistent unified earthquake catalog. Indeed, the unified moment magnitude catalog presented in this paper could provide reliable data for studying earthquakes distribution and the assessment of seismic hazards in the north of Algeria.
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The data supporting the findings of this study are available upon request. Our final catalog can be provided by contacting the corresponding Author.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their deepest gratitude to Dr. Assia Harbi (researcher at the Algerian CRAAG research center) for providing the CRAAG catalog for the northeast of Algeria. Although she is no longer with us today, however, her previous contribution and support remain instrumental in shaping our research works. Dr. Ranjit Das is thankful for his Fondecyt Incition project 11200618. The authors would also like to thank the International Seismological Center (ISC), The National Earthquake Information Center (NEIS), The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMCS), and the National Geographic Institute (IGN) earthquake agencies for the free online access to the earthquake databases.
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"Boudebouda Afaf" collected some data about Northern Algeria, analyzed them and helped in programming. Finally, she was in charge of the redaction of the whole manuscript. "Athmani Allaeddine" collected the remain earthquake data and did the main programming of the adopted regression methods, made figures and reviewed the final draft of the manuscript. "Das Ranjit" the manuscript was organized under his good insights. He helped in the application of his N.GOR (GOR 1) regression method and participated also in the review of the manuscript.
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Boudebouda, A., Athmani, A. & Ranjit, D. A Unified Earthquake Catalog for Northern Algeria Based on an Advanced Moment Magnitude Scale Using a Robust Regression Method. Pure Appl. Geophys. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-024-03451-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-024-03451-x