Statistical analysis of the 2012–2013 Torreperogil–Sabiote seismic series, Spain

Abstract

The study of earthquake swarms and their characteristics can improve our understanding of the transient processes that provoke seismic crises. The spatio-temporal process of the energy release is often linked with changes of statistical properties, and thus, seismicity parameters can help to reveal the underlying mechanism in time and space domains. Here, we study the Torreperogil–Sabiote 2012–2013 seismic series (southern Spain), which was relatively long lasting, and it was composed by more than 2000 events. The largest event was a magnitude 3.9 event which occurred on February 5, 2013. It caused slight damages, but it cannot explain the occurrence of the whole seismic crises which was not a typical mainshock–aftershock sequence. To shed some light on this swarm occurrence, we analyze the change of statistical properties during the evolution of the sequence, in particular, related to the magnitude and interevent time distributions. Furthermore, we fit a modified version of the epidemic type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model in order to investigate changes of the background rates and the trigger potential. Our results indicate that the sequence was driven by an aseismic transient stressing rate and that the system passes after the swarm occurrence to a new forcing regime with more typical tectonic characteristics.