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A generalized Omori's law for earthquake aftershock decay
Author(s) -
Shcherbakov Robert,
Turcotte Donald L.,
Rundle John B.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2004gl019808
Subject(s) - aftershock , magnitude (astronomy) , seismology , geology , scaling law , cutoff , scaling , law , geodesy , geometry , physics , mathematics , astrophysics , quantum mechanics , political science
Earthquake aftershock sequences have been found to approximately satisfy three empirical scaling relations: i) the Gutenberg‐Richter frequency‐magnitude scaling, ii) Båth's law for the difference in the magnitude of a mainshock and its largest aftershock, and iii) the modified Omori's law for the temporal decay of aftershock rates. The three laws are incorporated to give a generalized Omori's law for aftershock decay rates that depend on several parameters specific for each given seismogenic region. It is shown that the characteristic time c , first introduced in the modified Omori's law, is no longer a constant but scales with a lower magnitude cutoff and a mainshock magnitude. The generalized Omori's law is tested against earthquake catalogs for the aftershock sequences of the Landers, Northridge, Hector Mine, and San Simeon earthquakes.