Nonparametric Hawkes models with strike angle covariates.

Frederic P. Schoenberg, & James Molyneux

Published August 15, 2017, SCEC Contribution #7753, 2017 SCEC Annual Meeting Poster #008 (PDF)

Earthquake focal mechanism estimates have been posited to have predictive value for forecasting future seismicity. In particular, for strike-slip earthquakes, aftershocks should occur roughly along the estimated mainshock strike. However, the errors in such estimated strike angles is considerable. We compare the degree to which estimated strike angles forecast the direction of future seismicity around a given earthquake to that of uniformly distributed angles and to strike angles estimated based on previous seismicity. The fit of non-parametrically estimated Hawkes models using the estimated strike angle that best fits the post-mainshock set of events for each mainshock is compared to that of corresponding models that exclude these estimates. Strike angle estimates are shown to have marginal predictive value for forecasting the direction of future seismicity, but no more than the better-fitting of a uniformly distributed angle and its complement.

Key Words
earthquake forecasting, earthquake prediction, focal mechanisms, Hawkes process, moment tensor, Voronoi deviance residuals.

Citation
Schoenberg, F. P., & Molyneux, J. (2017, 08). Nonparametric Hawkes models with strike angle covariates. . Poster Presentation at 2017 SCEC Annual Meeting.

Related Projects & Working Groups
Earthquake Forecasting and Predictability (EFP)