Analysis of the spatial distribution between successive earthquakes

Spatial distances between subsequent earthquakes in southern California exhibit scale-free statistics, with a critical exponent delta approximately 0.6, as well as finite size scaling. The statistics are independent of the threshold magnitude as long as the catalog is complete, but depend strongly o...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2005-02, Vol.94 (4), p.048501-048501, Article 048501
Main Authors: Davidsen, Jörn, Paczuski, Maya
Format: Article
Language:English
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:Spatial distances between subsequent earthquakes in southern California exhibit scale-free statistics, with a critical exponent delta approximately 0.6, as well as finite size scaling. The statistics are independent of the threshold magnitude as long as the catalog is complete, but depend strongly on the temporal ordering of events, rather than the geometry of the spatial epicenter distribution. Nevertheless, the spatial distance and waiting time between subsequent earthquakes are uncorrelated with each other. These observations contradict the theory of aftershock zone scaling with main shock magnitude.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.048501