The largest aftershock: How strong, how far away, how delayed?

Proposed in the 1950's, Båth's law states that the largest aftershock has a magnitude that is typically 1.2 less than that of the mainshock. Thirty years of the global earthquake catalog allow us to extend Båth's law in time, space and focal mechanism. On average, reverse faults have...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2012-02, Vol.39 (4), p.n/a
Main Authors: Tahir, M., Grasso, J.-R., Amorèse, D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
aftershocks
Bath's law
Earth Sciences
Earth, ocean, space
earthquake
Earthquakes
Exact sciences and technology
faulting style
Geophysics
Sciences of the Universe
Seismic activity
Seismology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Proposed in the 1950's, Båth's law states that the largest aftershock has a magnitude that is typically 1.2 less than that of the mainshock. Thirty years of the global earthquake catalog allow us to extend Båth's law in time, space and focal mechanism. On average, reverse faults have a smaller magnitude and distance from the mainshock to largest aftershock than strike‐slip faults. The distribution of the time intervals between mainshocks and their largest aftershocks obeys power law, but with a somewhat faster rate of decay than for aftershocks, in general. This implies that the largest aftershocks are more likely to occur earlier rather than later in a given sequence of aftershocks. Key Points The largest aftershock is larger in size for reverse than for strike slip event The largest aftershock is the closest to the mainshock for reverse events Space and size patterns are in agreement with static stress changes
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1029/2011GL050604