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Pattern recognition of historic seismicity data and earthquake forecasting
Tiampo, K F - Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5B7 Canada
Rundle, J B - Center for Computational Science and Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 United States
Bowman, D D - Dept. of Geological Sciences, California State University, Fullerton, CA 92831 United States
Holliday, J - Center for Computational Science and Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 United States
Klein, W - Dept. of Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215 United States
Jimenez, A - Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 5B7 Canada
Chen, C - Dept. of Earth Sciences and Graduate Institute of Geophysics, National Central University, Jhongli, 320 ROC Taiwan
Recent large earthquakes include the M ~ 7.4 event that struck Izmit, Turkey in August of 1999, the M ~ 7.6 Taiwan earthquake which occurred in September of 1999, and the M ~ 9 Indonesian earthquake of December 2004. Recent successful geophysical research associated with earthquakes forecasting has centered on investigating the spatial and temporal patterns in seismicity, a technique for which high-quality seismic data is essential. Using this data, we employ a pattern analysis technique, formulated based on the physical and theoretical understanding of complex, nonlinear fault systems, to isolate emergent regions of coherent, correlated seismicity prior to their occurrence in southern California (Tiampo et al., 2002). This method, the PI index, identifies the characteristic patterns associated with the shifting of small earthquakes from one location to another through time, prior to the occurrence of large earthquakes and relative to the long-term background rate as measured by this historic seismicity data. This technique has since been modified to forecast the rupture dimension of upcoming large events, a parameter that can be directly related to magnitude. Examples of the application of this technique to a variety of tectonic regions, such as California, Canada, Turkey, Spain, and Japan, will be discussed here.
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