A non-stationary earthquake probability assessment with the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion

Abstract

From theory to experience, earthquake probability associated with an active fault should be gradually increasing with time since the last event. In this paper, a new non-stationary earthquake assessment motivated/derived from the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion is introduced. Different from other non-stationary earthquake analyses, the new model can more clearly define and calculate the stress states between two characteristic earthquakes. In addition to the model development and the algorithms, this paper also presents an example calculation to help explain and validate the new model. On the condition of best-estimate model parameters, the example calculation shows a 7.6 % probability for the Meishan fault in central Taiwan to induce a major earthquake in years 2015-2025, and if the earthquake does not occur by 2025, the earthquake probability will increase to 8 % in 2025-2035, which validates the new model that can calculate non-stationary earthquake probability as it should vary with time.