A minimalist model of characteristic earthquakes

M. Vázquez-Prada (1) , A. González (1) , J. B. Gómez (1) , A. F. Pacheco (1)

1 Faculty of Sciences

In a spirit akin to the sandpile model of self-organized criticality, we present a simple statistical model of the cellular-automaton type which simulates the role of an asperity in the dynamics of a one-dimensional fault. This model produces an earthquake spectrum similar to the characteristic-earthquake behaviour of some seismic faults. This model, that has no parameter, is amenable to an algebraic description as a Markov Chain. This possibility illuminates some important results, obtained by Monte Carlo simulations, such as the earthquake size-frequency relation and the recurrence time of the characteristic earthquake.

Domaines: Cosmologie et astrophysique extra-galactique [astro-ph.CO]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]; Sciences de la Terre

M. Vázquez-Prada, A. González, J. B. Gómez, A. F. Pacheco. A minimalist model of characteristic earthquakes. Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, 2002, 9 (5/6), pp.513-519. ⟨hal-00303036⟩