Stochastic Models for Earthquake Occurrence

Summary This paper attempts to survey some of the stochastic models which have been proposed for the sequence of energies and origin times of earthquakes from a given region, and to describe some examples of their application. to a good approximation in a regional study, each earthquake may be regarded as a point event, and consequently the main emphasis is on stochastic point processes. The theory of such processes is developed in a form suitable for this context, with particular emphasis being given to the clustering models of Neymann–Scott and Bartlett–Lewis. The use of these models is illustrated with reference to earthquake data from New Zealand. A final Section is concerned with stochastic models for aftershock sequences—the trains of smaller shocks which frequently follow the occurrence of large shallow earthquakes.