2004/03/01 by Stefano Lise, Lise, Stefano, Maya Paczuski +4
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Physics and Astronomy · #Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis #Earthquake Detection and Analysis #FOS: Physical sciences #Geophysics (physics.geo-ph) #Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other) #cond-mat.other #earthquake and tectonic studies #physics.geo-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0403037
4 pages with 3 figures, submitted
arxiv created 2004/03/01 · openalex publication_date 2004/03/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
After a large earthquake, the likelihood of successive strong aftershocks needs to be estimated. Exploiting similarities with critical phenomena, we introduce a scaling law for the decay in time following a main shock of the expected number of aftershocks greater than a certain magnitude. Empirical results that support our scaling hypothesis are obtained from analyzing the record of earthquakes in California. The proposed form unifies the well-known Omori and Gutenberg-Richter laws of seismicity, together with other phenomenological observations. Our results substantially modify presently employed estimates and may lead to an improved assessment of seismic hazard after a large earthquake.