Rate‐Dependent Incompleteness of Earthquake Catalogs

Research Article| February 10, 2016 Rate‐Dependent Incompleteness of Earthquake Catalogs Sebastian Hainzl Sebastian Hainzl aGFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, 14473 Potsdam, Germanyhainzl@gfz-potsdam.de Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Author and Article Information Sebastian Hainzl aGFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, 14473 Potsdam, Germanyhainzl@gfz-potsdam.de Publisher: Seismological Society of America First Online: 14 Jul 2017 Online Issn: 1938-2057 Print Issn: 0895-0695 © 2016 by the Seismological Society of America Seismological Research Letters (2016) 87 (2A): 337–344. https://doi.org/10.1785/0220150211 Article history First Online: 14 Jul 2017 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Search Site Citation Sebastian Hainzl; Rate‐Dependent Incompleteness of Earthquake Catalogs. Seismological Research Letters 2016;; 87 (2A): 337–344. doi: https://doi.org/10.1785/0220150211 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Refmanager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentBy SocietySeismological Research Letters Search Advanced Search ABSTRACT Important information about the earthquake generation process can be gained from instrumental earthquake catalogs, but this requires complete recordings to avoid biased results. The local completeness magnitude Mc is known to depend on general conditions such as the seismographic network and the environmental noise, which generally limit the possibility of detecting small events. The detectability can be additionally reduced by an earthquake‐induced increase of the noise level leading to short‐term variations of Mc, which cannot be resolved by traditional methods relying on the analysis of the frequency–magnitude distribution. Based on simple assumptions, I propose a new method to estimate such temporal excursions of Mc solely based on the estimation of the earthquake rate resulting in a high temporal resolution of Mc. The approach is shown to be in agreement with the apparent decrease of the estimated Gutenberg–Richter b‐value in high‐activity phases of recorded data sets and the observed incompleteness periods after mainshocks. Furthermore, an algorithm to estimate temporal changes of Mc is introduced and applied to empirical aftershock and swarm sequences from California and central Europe, indicating that observed b‐value fluctuations are often related to rate‐dependent incompleteness of the earthquake catalogs. You do not have access to this content, please speak to your institutional administrator if you feel you should have access.