34 research outputs found
The occupation of a box as a toy model for the seismic cycle of a fault
We illustrate how a simple statistical model can describe the quasiperiodic
occurrence of large earthquakes. The model idealizes the loading of elastic
energy in a seismic fault by the stochastic filling of a box. The emptying of
the box after it is full is analogous to the generation of a large earthquake
in which the fault relaxes after having been loaded to its failure threshold.
The duration of the filling process is analogous to the seismic cycle, the time
interval between two successive large earthquakes in a particular fault. The
simplicity of the model enables us to derive the statistical distribution of
its seismic cycle. We use this distribution to fit the series of earthquakes
with magnitude around 6 that occurred at the Parkfield segment of the San
Andreas fault in California. Using this fit, we estimate the probability of the
next large earthquake at Parkfield and devise a simple forecasting strategy.Comment: Final version of the published paper, with an erratum and an
unpublished appendix with some proof