A quantitative estimate of the effects of sea tides on aftershock activity: Kamchatka

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Abstract

The issue of whether tidal forces really affect seismicity has been raised many times in the literature. Nevertheless, even though there seems to be a kind of consensus that such effects do exist, no quantitative estimates are available to relate tide parameters to changes in the level of seismic activity. Such estimation for aftershocks of large earthquakes near Kamchatka is the goal of the present study. We consider the influence on seismicity due to ocean tides only, because their effects are stronger than those of solid earth tides. Accordingly, we only consider earthquakes that occurred in the ocean. One important feature that distinguishes the present study from most other such research consists in the fact that we study the height of ocean tides and its derivative rather than tidal phases as the decisive factors. We considered 16 aftershock sequences of earthquakes near Kamchatka with magnitudes of 6 or greater. We also examined shallow background earthquakes along the coast of Kamchatka. Our basic model of aftershock rate was the Omori–Utsu law. The background seismicity distribution was assumed to be uniform over time. In both of these cases we used the actual distributions in space. The heights of ocean tides were estimated using the FES 2004 model (Lyard et al., 2006). The variation in activity from what the basic model assumes in relation to tidal wave height and its time derivative was estimated by the method of differential probability gain. The main practical result of this study consists in estimates of averaged differential probability gain functions for aftershock rate with respect to both of theconsidered factors. These estimates can be used for earthquake hazard assessment from aftershocks with ocean tides incorporated. The results of our analysis show a persistent tendency of aftershock rate increasing during periods when the ocean tide decreased at a high rate. For the background events, we found a typical tendency of event rate increasing when the ocean tide decreased with high tidal amplitudes. The difference in the main factors that affect aftershocks and background seismicity suggest the inference that the effects of tides on aftershocks are more likely to be direct dynamic initiation of events during high strain rates, while the effects on the backgroundevents were static in character.

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About the authors

A. A. Baranov

Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences; Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences

Author for correspondence.
Email: baranov@ifz.ru
Russian Federation, 84/32, Profsoyuznaya str., Moscow, 117997; 10, bld. 1, B. Gruzinskaya str., Moscow, 123242 

S. V. Baranov

Kola Branch, RAS Unified Geophysical Survey Federal Research Center

Email: baranov@ifz.ru
Russian Federation, 14, Fersmana str., Apatity, Murmansk Region, 184209

P. N. Shebalin

Institute of Earthquake Prediction Theory and Mathematical Geophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences

Email: p.n.shebalin@gmail.com
Russian Federation, 84/32, Profsoyuznaya str., Moscow, 117997

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2. Fig. 1. An example of calculation using the FES 2004 program for the height of the sea tide for the earthquake region of March 2, 1992 M = 6.6 near the coast of Kamchatka.

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3. Fig. 2. Map of the main shocks with M ≥ 6 near Kamchatka, 1971–2013, whose aftershocks were used for analysis.

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4. Fig. 3. Estimation of the tstart parameter for a given value of the Mc parameter using the example of the aftershock sequence of the December 5, 1997 earthquake magnitude M = 7.0

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5. Fig. 4. Map of epicenters and tide heights for aftershocks of the Kronotsky earthquake of December 5, 1997, M = 7.0.

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6. Fig. 5. Functions of differential probability gain g (a, c, d) and g ′ (b, d, e) for three aftershock sequences from the main shocks: a, b - 1971, M = 7.0, c, d - 1997 ., M = 7.0, d, e - 1997, M = 6.4.

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7. Fig.6. The aggregate functions of the differential probability gain g (a, c, d) and g ′ (b, d, e): a, b - for all 16 aftershock series, c, d - for 13 series (excluded 1971 series and two series 1997), d, e - for 14 episodes (2 episodes of 1997 are excluded).

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8. Fig. 7. Functions of differential probability gains g (a) and g ′ (b) for background events.

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9. Fig. 8. An example of the ratio of the height of the tide h and its derivative with respect to time h ′ in the period of 30 days of analyzing the sequence of aftershocks of the Kronotsky earthquake of December 5, 1997, M = 7.0.

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