Time-decreasing hazard and increasing time until the next earthquake

Journal Article · Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2005 · Physical Review. E, Statistical Physics, Plasmas, Fluids, and Related Interdisciplinary Topics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.71.017101· OSTI ID:20641368

Corral, Alvaro ^[1]

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1. Grup de Fisica Estadistica, Departament de Fisica, Facultat de Ciencies, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, E-08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona (Spain)

The existence of a slowly always decreasing probability density for the recurrence times of earthquakes in the stationary case implies that the occurrence of an event at a given instant becomes more unlikely as time since the previous event increases. Consequently, the expected waiting time to the next earthquake increases with the elapsed time, that is, the event moves away fast to the future. We have found direct empirical evidence of this counterintuitive behavior in two worldwide catalogs as well as in diverse regional catalogs. Universal scaling functions describe the phenomenon well.

• OSTI ID: 20641368
• Journal Information: Physical Review. E, Statistical Physics, Plasmas, Fluids, and Related Interdisciplinary Topics, Vol. 71, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.71.017101; (c) 2005 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1063-651X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CATALOGS
EARTHQUAKES
FUNCTIONS
HAZARDS
PROBABILITY
SEISMOLOGY