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Journal Articles Science Year : 2008

Extending Earthquakes' Reach Through Cascading.

Abstract

Earthquakes, whatever their size, can trigger other earthquakes. Mainshocks cause aftershocks to occur, which in turn activate their own local aftershock sequences, resulting in a cascade of triggering that extends the reach of the initial mainshock. A long-lasting difficulty is to determine which earthquakes are connected, either directly or indirectly. Here we show that this causal structure can be found probabilistically, with no a priori model nor parameterization. Large regional earthquakes are found to have a short direct influence in comparison to the overall aftershock sequence duration. Relative to these large mainshocks, small earthquakes collectively have a greater effect on triggering. Hence, cascade triggering is a key component in earthquake interactions.
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Dates and versions

insu-00334983 , version 1 (28-10-2008)

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David Marsan, O. Lengline. Extending Earthquakes' Reach Through Cascading.. Science, 2008, 319 (5866), pp.1076 à 1079. ⟨10.1126/science.1148783⟩. ⟨insu-00334983⟩
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