Importance of direct and indirect triggered seismicity in the ETAS model of seismicity

A. Helmstetter (1) , D. Sornette (2, 3)

1 LGIT - Laboratoire de Géophysique Interne et Tectonophysique
2 LPMC - Laboratoire de physique de la matière condensée
3 IGPP - Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics [Los Angeles]

Using the simple ETAS branching model of seismicity, which assumes that each earthquake can trigger other earthquakes, we quantify the role played by the cascade of triggered seismicity in controlling the rate of aftershock decay as well as the overall level of seismicity in the presence of a constant external seismicity source.We show that, in this model, the fraction of earthquakes in the population that are aftershocks is equal to the fraction of aftershocks that are indirectly triggered and is given by the average number of triggered events per earthquake. Previous observations that a significant fraction of earthquakes are triggered earthquakes therefore imply that most aftershocks are indirectly triggered by the mainshock. INDEX TERMS: 7209 Seismology: Earthquake dynamics and mechanics; 7223 Seismology: Seismic hazard assessment and prediction; 7260 Seismology: Theory and modeling.

Domaines: Géophysique [physics.geo-ph]; Tectonique

A. Helmstetter, D. Sornette. Importance of direct and indirect triggered seismicity in the ETAS model of seismicity. Geophysical Research Letters, 2003, 30 (11), pp.1576. ⟨10.1029/2003GL017670⟩. ⟨hal-00194360⟩