RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES VOL. 9, ES2005, doi:10.2205/2007ES000220, 2007

Using modern seismological data to reveal earthquake precursors

¹Schmidt Institute of the Physics of the Earth RAS, Moscow, Russia
²Geophysical Center RAS, Moscow, Russia

Abstract

[1]  Records obtained at the IRIS world-wide system of broadband seismic stations before strong earthquakes were investigated with a purpose of detecting hidden periodicities, multiple coherence effects and seeking for asymmetric impulses within a minute range of periods. The stations are located at different distances from the epicenters of earthquakes. The initial realizations consisted of discrete measurements with a sampling rate of 20 Hz and the total volume of analyzed data exceeded 25 Gb. We used various programs of processing and analyzing time series: revealing of hidden periodicities in the sequences of peak values at a given level; wavelet analysis of microseisms flow; search for multiple coherence effects based on Fourier and wavelet approaches; estimates of spectral coherence measures evolution of variations of multi-fractal singularity indexes and others. Asymmetric pulses about 3-10 min long did arose several days before the Kronotskoe 05.12.1997 ( M = 7.8), Neftegorskoe 27.05.1995 ( M = 7.0), and Hokkaido 25.09.2003 ( M = 8.5) earthquakes. Intervals of a stable manifestation of several periods (tens of minutes) of pulses were found before the Kronotskoe and Hokkaido events. Synchronization of microseismic oscillations at different stations was detected starting several days before Hokkaido and Sumatra 26.12.2004 ( M = 9.2) earthquakes. Comparison of records obtained at different stations allows estimating the regional and local peculiarities of the anomalies. It is assumed that the nature of these phenomena is related to self-organization properties of the seismic process. The periodic vibrations, asymmetric pulses and synchronization intervals are indicators of the unstable state of a seismically active region and could be regarded as earthquake precursors.

Received 21 June 2007; accepted 16 September 2007; published 12 December 2007.

Keywords: IRIS world-wide system, microseismic oscillations, wavelet analysis, earthquake precursors.

Index Terms: 7209 Seismology: Earthquake dynamics; 7223 Seismology: Earthquake interaction, forecasting, and prediction; 7294 Seismology: Seismic instruments and networks.

Citation: Sobolev, G. A., and A. A. Lyubushin (2007), Using modern seismological data to reveal earthquake precursors, Russ. J. Earth Sci., 9, ES2005, doi:10.2205/2007ES000220.