A New Method for Imaging Seismic Quiescence and Its Application to the M w = 8.3 Kurile Islands Earthquake on 15 November 2006

Abstract

In the present paper, a new method referred to as the Poisson probability map (PMAP) method is presented for identifying and visualizing seismic quiescence. With the PMAP, the P-value is defined as the probability that consecutive earthquakes occur according to a homogeneous Poisson process: the smaller the P-value, the less frequently the longer time interval is observed, i.e. the more significant the seismic quiescence. The PMAP method was applied to the sequence which preceded the Kurile Islands earthquake that occurred on 15 November 2006 [Mw = 8.3 and the centroid = (154.33 °E, 46.71 °N)]. The seismic quiescence is identified by a small P-value of 9.0 × 10–5 that was found to start in 1990.1, which lasted for 15.4 years and ended in 2005.5 within a circular area centered at (153.8 °E, 47.1 °N) and with a radius of 26 km. This seismic quiescence has not previously been recognized using any other method.