Space-Time Clustering and Correlations of Major Earthquakes

James R. Holliday, John B. Rundle, Donald L. Turcotte, William Klein, Kristy F. Tiampo, and Andrea Donnellan
Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 238501 – Published 6 December 2006

Abstract

Earthquake occurrence in nature is thought to result from correlated elastic stresses, leading to clustering in space and time. We show that the occurrence of major earthquakes in California correlates with time intervals when fluctuations in small earthquakes are suppressed relative to the long term average. We estimate a probability of less than 1% that this coincidence is due to random clustering.

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  • Received 1 May 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.238501

©2006 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

James R. Holliday1,2,*, John B. Rundle1,2,3,†, Donald L. Turcotte3,‡, William Klein4,§, Kristy F. Tiampo5,∥, and Andrea Donnellan6,¶

  • 1Center for Computational Science and Engineering, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA
  • 2Department of Physics, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA
  • 3Department of Geology, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA
  • 4Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
  • 5Department of Earth Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5B8, Canada
  • 6NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California 91109, USA.

  • *Electronic address: holliday@cse.ucdavis.edu
  • Electronic address: jbrundle@ucdavis.edu
  • Electronic address: turcotte@geology.ucdavis.edu
  • §Electronic address: klein@physics.bu.edu
  • Electronic address: ktiampo@seis.es.uwo.ca
  • Electronic address: andrea.donnellan@jpl.nasa.gov

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Issue

Vol. 97, Iss. 23 — 8 December 2006

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