Scaling law for seismic hazard after a main shock

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new scaling law for aftershock decay following a main earthquake, unifying existing seismicity laws and improving hazard assessment models.

Contribution

It proposes a novel scaling law based on critical phenomena concepts that unifies Omori and Gutenberg-Richter laws for seismic aftershock analysis.

Findings

Empirical validation using California earthquake data

Unification of seismicity laws under a single scaling framework

Potential for improved seismic hazard estimation

Abstract

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.}