Hazard functions and conditional probability of earthquake occurrences in major fault zones in Turkey

Subject Areas : Geophysics

Hakan  Karaca ¹ (Department of Architecture, Omer Halisdemir University, Nigde, Turkey)

Received: 2022-02-24 Accepted : 2022-10-28 Published : 2023-04-01

Keywords: Interevent times, East Anatolian Fault, Conditional Probability of Earthquakes, Hazard Functions, North Anatolian Fault,

Abstract :

Among several distribution characteristics, temporal distribution characteristics of earthquakes provide the most crucial information on the temporal patterns of past seismicity. Identification of such patterns is required for seismic hazard, forecast studies and also simulation of future seismicity. The confusion of how to model the past temporal patterns does limit further development:. Though the Poisson model is routinely used in hazard modelling, its validity is often questioned. Furthermore, the question as to which model best represent past temporal patterns of earthquake occurrence is not answered yet. Within this context, in this study, to investigate the interevent time (IET) distribution, two seismically active regions in Turkey are selected where the seismic activity never diminishes and the hazard remains high. These regions, namely the western end of the North Anatolian Fault Zone and East Anatolian Fault Zone are known to produce moderate or large magnitude earthquakes. Four distributions, namely, exponential, gamma, Weibull and lognormal models are tested for how well they fit the earthquake records of the two faults, and importantly, the hazard functions that is instantaneous rate of occurrence of events, and conditional probabilities are also developed for performance evaluation. In the end, it is observed that, each model has flaws in identification of temporal pattern of earthquake occurrences and forecasting earthquakes.

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