Long-term earthquake prediction in the circum-pacific convergent belt

Investigation of the time-dependent seismicity in 274 seismogenic regions of the entire continental fracture system indicates that strong shallow earthquakes in each region exhibit short as well as intermediate term time clustering (duration extending to several years) which follow a power-law time distribution. Mainshocks, however (interevent times of the order of decades), show a quasiperiodic behaviour and follow the ‘regional time and magnitude predictable seismicity model’. This model is expressed by the following formulas\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} $$\begin{gathered} \log T_t = 0.19 M_{\min } + 0.33 M_p - 0.39 \log m_0 + q \hfill \\ M_f = 0.73 M_{\min } - 0.28 M_p + 0.40 \log m_0 + m \hfill \\ \end{gathered} $$ \end{document} which relate the interevent time,Tt (in years), and the surface wave magnitude,Mf, of the following mainshock: with the magnitude,Mmin, of the smallest mainshock considered, the magnitude,Mp, of the preceded mainshock and the moment rate,m0 (in dyn.cm.yr−1), in a seismogenic region. The values of the parametersq andm vary from area to area. The basic properties of this model are described and problems related to its physical significance are discussed.