HR: 0830h
AN: NG41C-0067    [PDF]
TI: Forecasting Earthquakes in Southern California Using the Stress Accumulation Method
AU: * Clark, J
EM: malichan99@hotmail.com
AF: California State University, Fullerton, 800 N. State College Blvd, Fullerton, CA 92834-6850 United States
AU: Ikeda, N
EM: nikeda@qwickconnect.net
AF: California State University, Fullerton, 800 N. State College Blvd, Fullerton, CA 92834-6850 United States
AU: Bowman, D
EM: dbowman@fullerton.edu
AF: California State University, Fullerton, 800 N. State College Blvd, Fullerton, CA 92834-6850 United States
AB: Many large earthquakes are preceded by a regional increase in seismic energy release. This phenomenon, called "accelerating moment release" (AMR), is due primarily to an increase in the number of intermediate-size events in a region surrounding the mainshock. Bowman and King (GRL, 2001) and King and Bowman (JGR, 2003) have described a technique for calculating an approximate geologically-constrained loading model that can be used to define regions of AMR before a large earthquake. While this method has been used to search for AMR before large earthquakes in many locations, most of these observations are "postdictions" in the sense that the time, location, and magnitude of the main event were known and used as parameters in determining the region of precursory activity. With sufficient knowledge of the regional tectonics, it should be possible to estimate the likelihood of earthquake rupture scenarios by searching for AMR related to stress accumulation on specific faults. Here we show a preliminary attempt to use AMR to forecast strike-slip earthquakes on specific faults in southern California. The false-alarm rate for this method is also estimated using synthetic earthquake catalogs.
DE: 3200 MATHEMATICAL GEOPHYSICS (New field)
DE: 7200 SEISMOLOGY
DE: 7223 Seismic hazard assessment and prediction
SC: Nonlinear Geophysics [NG]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting