Last Century Worldwide Seismicity Analysis: A New View of Earthquake Prediction Based on the Brittle-Ductile Interaction Hypothesis

Abstract eng:
World-wide, regional, and local earthquake catalogues are used to analyze seismic time variation at global, regional and local scale. The quality of the catalogues is discussed and the magnitude of completeness is estimated. Taking into account the availability of regional data, their time and magnitude completeness threshold and their rate of seismic activity, three countries/regions are chosen for regional analysis: Spain, Colombia and Taiwan. Finally, a seismic station in Colombia is selected for a detailed local analysis. In fact, the final target of this work is to test the lithosphere brittle-ductile interaction hypothesis as a mid-term predictor. The time evolution of seismic activity represents the brittle zone behavior while the one of the ductile zone is characterized by the time evolution of the coda-Q quality factor. Correlation analysis between seismicity and attenuation would lead to a mid-term prediction. Thus, at local scale, for the selected station, both seismicity and attenuation functions are analyzed. Cross correlation of the time series of the seismic rates with those of the attenuation, is calculated. Significant variations, in both the seismic activity and the Q quality factor, are detected, and seismic patterns, such as cycles are distinguished at all scales. The effects of the complex and deep activity in the Colombian region in the correlation analysis are discussed and compared with results of analogous studies in other dissimilar tectonic areas.

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