Small world in a seismic network: the California case

Abstract

Abstract. Recent work has shown that disparate systems can be described as complex networks i.e. assemblies of nodes and links with nontrivial topological properties. Examples include technological, biological and social systems. Among them, earthquakes have been studied from this perspective. In the present work, we divide the Southern California region into cells of 0.1 • , and calculate the correlation of activity between them to create functional networks for that seismic area, in the same way that the brain activity is studied from the complex network perspective. We found that the network shows small world features.

Graph theory in the geosciences

“…The SWN framework was also applied to magma transport beneath mid-ocean ridges (Valentini et al, 2007b). Seismic data from various locations were found to have small-world features by Abe and Suzuki (2006) and Jiménez et al (2008). identified SWN properties as a potential explanation of long-distance climate teleconnections.…”

Synchronization and scale in geomorphic systems

“…Seismic data from California and Japan were analyzed as growing random networks by Abe and Suzuki (2006), who found them to have small-world features. Jiménez et al (2008) divided the southern California region into cells, which they treated as graphical nodes, and used the correlation of seismic activity between them to indicate graphical edges or network connections. Again, the network was found to exhibit SWN features.…”

Intraplate seismicity in Canada: a graph theoretic approach to data analysis and interpretation

“…One class of intraplate seismicity is concentrated along passive continental margins (Sandiford and Egholm, 2008), whereas another comprises events that are scattered heterogeneously throughout the stable continental interior (Basham et al, 1977;Dewey, 1988;Adams, 1989a;Adams and Basham, 1990;Johnston and Kanter, 1990;Hasegawa, 1991;Denith and Featherstone, 2003). Our present work focuses on the latter class of intraplate earthquakes, which are less well understood.…”

“…This class of seismicity has been extensively studied in recent decades (Gregersen, 1979;Adams and Basham, 1990;Johnston and Kanter, 1990;Denith and Featherstone, 2003;Sandiford and Egholm, 2008; Correspondence to: K. Vasudevan (vasudeva@ucalgary.ca) Liu, 2009) and continues to draw the interest of seismologists and seismic hazard analysts, including earthquakes in the continental interior of the US (Coppersmith et al, 1987;Dewey, 1988;Johnston and Kanter, 1990;Zoback, 1992;Li et al, 2009;Stein and Liu, 2009), several regions of Canada (Basham et al, 1977;Quinlan, 1984;Adams, 1989a;Bent, 1996;Eaton et al, 2005;Darbyshire et al, 2007;Wang et al, 2008;Woodgold, 2010), Australia (Bowman et al, 1990;Denith and Featherstone, 2003;Sandiford and Egholm, 2008), southeast Brazil (Assumpção et al, 2004), and northern Norway (Gregersen, 1979;Atakan et al, 1994;Bungum et al, 2010;Gregersen and Voss, 2009). One particularly intriguing aspect is the high spatial and temporal variability of seismic activity in continental interiors compared with plate boundaries .…”

“…The framework of spatiotemporal point processes is especially well suited for complex network analysis (Albert and Barabási, 2002;Newman, 2003;Fagiolo, 2007;Fortunato, 2010), which has recently been applied to earthquake data (Baiesi andPaczuski, 2004, 2005;Davidsen et al, 2008;Jiménez et al, 2008;Marsan and Lengliné, 2008;Zaliapin et al, 2008). This approach has proved helpful in characterizing the spatiotemporal clustering of earthquakes in southern California and to establish non-trivial features by direct comparison with stochastic null models Peixoto and Davidsen, 2008;Peixoto et al, 2010).…”