Journal article

Publication year: 2005

Journal: Physical Review Letters

Volume number: 95

Issue number: 20

ISSN: 0031-9007

eISSN: 1079-7114

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.208501

Publisher: American Physical Society

Abstract: 
We study the statistics of the recurrence times tau between earthquakes above a certain magnitude M in six (one global and five regional) earthquake catalogs. We find that the distribution of the recurrence times strongly depends on the previous recurrence time tau(0), such that small and large recurrence times tend to cluster in time. This dependence on the past is reflected in both the conditional mean recurrence time and the conditional mean residual time until the next earthquake, which increase monotonically with tau(0). As a consequence, the risk of encountering the next event within a certain time span after the last event depends significantly on the past, an effect that has to be taken into account in any effective earthquake prognosis.

Harvard Citation style: Livina, V., Havlin, S. and Bunde, A. (2005) Memory in the occurrence of earthquakes, Physical Review Letters, 95(20), Article 208501. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.208501

APA Citation style: Livina, V., Havlin, S., & Bunde, A. (2005). Memory in the occurrence of earthquakes. Physical Review Letters. 95(20), Article 208501. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.95.208501