Evaluation of 0 <_ M <_ earthquake data sets in African – Asian region during 1966–2015
No Thumbnail Available
Date
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Description
Thisarticleevaluatestheoccurrenceof0 r M r 8 earthquakedata
setsfortheperiodof50years(thatis,January1,1966toDecember
31,2015)inAfricanandWesternAsiaregion.Itisboundedby
latitude40° S to40° N andlongitude30° W to60° E withthefocal
depthof0–700km.Seventyseventhousand,sixhundredand
ninety-sixdatapointswerepresentedfortheanalysis.Thedata
usedwereextractedfromearthquakecatalogofAdvancedNational
Seismicsystemvia http://quake.geo.berkeley.edu/cnss/, anofficial
websiteoftheNorthernCaliforniaEarthquakeDataCentre,USA.
Eachdatumcomprisedtheearthquakeoccurrencedate,timeofthe
earthquakeoccurrence,epicenter’s coordinates,focaldepthand
magnitude.TheGutenberg-Richter’s relationshipbeingthelongest
observedempiricalrelationshipinseismology,analysisofvariance
andtimeserieswereusedtoanalyzetheseismicityofthestudy
area.Annualdistributionsofearthquakeoccurrencebasedon
magnitudevariationswiththelimit0 r M r 8 werepresented.
ThetwoconstantsaandbintheGutenberg-Richter’s equation,
magnitudeofcompleteness(MC)adjustedR-Squareand F-valuefor
theperiodof1966–1975,1976–1985,1986–1995,1996–2005,2006–
2015,andtheentireperiodofinvestigationrangingfrom1966to 2015weredeterminedsoastoinvestigatethevariationsofthese
parametersonearthquakeoccurrenceovertime.Thehistogramsof
earthquakeoccurrenceagainstmagnitudeofearthquakesforthe
selectedyears(1966–1975,1976–1985,1986–1995,1996–2005,
2006–2015,and1966–2015),andthedecadalfrequencydistribu-
tionsofearthquakeoccurrencewerealsoplotted.Thefocaldepth
occurrenceforeachmagnitudebins(0–0.9,1–1.9,2–2.9,3–3.9,4–
4.9,5–5.9,6–6.9,7–7.9,8–8.9)weregroupedintoshallow,inter-
mediate,anddeepdepthsrangingfrom0to70,71to300,and301
to700kmasbeingusedinseismology.Theneuralnetworkanalysis
wasalsoappliedtothemagnitudeoftheearthquake.Thenetwork
usesatimeseriesmagnitudedataasinputwiththeoutputbeing
themagnitudeofthefollowingday.Ifthenatureoftheearthquakes
timeseriesisstochastic,modelingandpredictionispossible.The
earthquakedatasetspresentedinthisarticlecanfurtherbeadopted
in thestudyofseismicitypattern, b-valueusingseriesofmodels,
earthquakepredictionandvariationsofearthquakeparameterson
Africanand/orArabianplates.Whenthisapproachisintegrated
withothertechnique(s),itcanprovideinsightstostabilityof African
lithospehricplatesespeciallythecoastalregionofAfrica.
Keywords
Q Science (General), QC Physics