The relationship between local and moment magnitude in Greece during the period 2008–2016

Abstract

We perform a systematic comparison between local and moment magnitudes in Greece for the period 2008–2016 when both magnitudes have been determined using waveform data recorded by the Hellenic Unified Seismic Network (HUSN). Differences between the two magnitudes scales on average do not exceed ± 0.2 units as has been found in other regions worldwide. A recalculation of local magnitude using magnitude residuals for each HUSN station shows that station site conditions have very little influence on the difference between local and moment magnitude. It is therefore more likely that wave propagation effects and in rare cases, anomalous source properties are dominant factors in shaping this difference. General orthogonal regression is applied to the whole dataset and also to subsets covering different areas of Greece or different time period to calibrate the one magnitude scale against the other using a linear model. The resulting relationships differ very little, suggesting that there is no significant regional/temporal variation between local and moment magnitudes. While these relationships predict that local magnitude is very close to moment magnitude if both are determined using HUSN data, the comparison with Global CMT moment magnitude (with M w in the range 4.5–6.2) shows that it is larger than local magnitude by 0.18 units. These results are particularly important for converting local magnitudes to equivalent moment magnitudes and thus homogenize the Greek earthquake catalog.