Is the stress relaxation relevant for long term forecasting?

Abstract

The seismic gap hypothesis states that fault regions, where no large earthquake has recently occurred, are more prone than others to host the next large earthquake. This could allow an estmate of the occurrence probability of the next big shock on the basis of the time delay from the last earthquakes. Recent results, both numerical and instrumental, have shown that aftershock occurrence can provide important insights about the validty and range of applicability of the GAP hypothes. Here we discuss how to include the information of these new results in Self Exciting Point Process SEPP models, oiginally developed to describe only aftershock spatio-temporal patterns. In particular, using as testing laboratory a numerical model which reproduces all relevant statistical features of earthquake occurrence, we show as the introduction of stress release in SEPP models can improve long term earthquake prediction.