Statistical evidence for long-range space-time relationships between large earthquakes

Abstract

Whether large earthquakes are triggered by other large earthquakes at very large distances, and at time scales where the triggered event is delayed by more than several days or weeks, is an open question. Here I provide statistical evidence to show that large earthquakes near the subduction zones of the Pacific plate boundary lessen significantly the average time until the next large earthquake that occurs near the boundaries of the smaller and adjacent Nazca and Cocos plates in the eastern Pacific Ocean. In addition, the existence and importance of this relationship is enriched by the finding that the larger the magnitude of the Pacific plate earthquake, the more likely it becomes that the time until the next earthquake in the distant triggered zone is less than the time since the last earthquake in the triggered zone. There are also specific regions along the western and northern Pacific plates where these relationships appear to be particularly prominent. The findings call into question the notion that the hazard of large earthquakes in distant regions is not raised following other large earthquakes, and they provide statistical evidence for relationships between earthquakes occurring months apart on different plates.