S1 Seismologi
Gasal 2021/2022
M10: How Good is
Your Earthquake
Catalog (2)?
Ade Anggraini
Departemen Fisika
Fakultas MIPA
Universitas Gadjah mada
• A table of information about earthquakes (when and where
they occurred, how big they were, etc.)
• hypocentral locations: lat, lon, focal depth
Earthquake • origin times of earthquakes
Catalog: What is • arrival-time(P and S)
• amplitude and period measurements used to estimate the
inside? source parameters.
Let’s go back to slide 12!
• earthquake size (seismic moment->modern catalog)
• faulting geometry of the source (moment tensor solution-
See, seismologists are
> modern catalog)
responsible for the result of
catalog.
Seismologi Undergrad 2
Earthquake Catalog: What is inside? The basic
parameters
1. An event identification number (ID) or a tag
formed with letters and numbers that is unique
(but often not sequential).
2. The location (hypocenter) of an earthquake in a
reference system (latitude / longitude / depth)
3. The origin time of an earthquake (date, time with
at least 0.01 sec precision)
4. Magnitude or multiple magnitudes for the
earthquake
Seismologi Undergrad 3
Earthquake Catalog: What is inside?The optional
parameters
• Uncertainty bounds on magnitudes
• Uncertainty limits on location parameters,
horizontal and vertical: gives insight in the
precision of the location
• Number of observations to determine location (NObs)
• The number of phases (P and S) that are used to locate an
earthquake hypocenter
• Azimuthal Gap
• etc
Seismologi Undergrad 4
Quantifying the Quality of Our
Earthquake Catalog
Seismologi Undergrad 5
Magnitude of Completeness: How Low
Can You Go
Seismologi Undergrad 6
Magnitude of completeness
(aka the Mc)
• The smallest value of magnitude at which the catalog
is thought to have included all seismic events.
• Mc=4 means a catalog records all earthquakes with
M>=4.
• Mc is a simplistic assessment of a catalog of
earthquakes.
Seismologi Undergrad 7
One complication of Mc: time
and space variability
• Mc value is variable in time and space.
• Different regions of Indonesia (and also other parts of Earth)
have a different Mc, and that value has changed through time.
• As seismic monitoring stations are added or removed, our
ability to reliably locate small earthquakes changes.
• More dense stations allow the monitoring agency to locate
smaller earthquakes and therefore lower the Mc.
• The loss of a station hinders our ability to locate smaller
events, and raises the Mc.
Seismologi Undergrad 8
One complication of Mc: time and space variability
Diantari et al, 2018
Seismologi Undergrad 9
One complication of Mc: time and space variability
Diantari et al, 2018
Seismologi Undergrad 10
One complication of Mc: time and space variability
• Another contributing factor
is the rate of earthquakes.
• For example, early in an
aftershock sequence there are
often too many overlapping
earthquakes. It becomes hard
to separate multiple events
and reliably locate small
events. Over time, the Figure 1. This example of magnitude of completeness with
sequence slows down and time for a month before and the year following a M6.4
mainshock shows the variability of the Mc during an
individual events are more aftershock sequence
easily seen (Figure 1).
Seismologi Undergrad 11
How to estimate Mc
• The most straightforward Mc
estimation uses the Gutenberg-
Richter Law of earthquake
magnitude distribution
(Gutenberg& Richter 1956).
1. Eqs grouped into “bins” based
on magnitudes > reference
magnitude. Ie. M3 bin
includes all Eqs M≥ 3 --
?Histogram.
2. Each bin is plotted on normal
- log scale.
3. Fit a straight line into
data.
4. The point where data
separated from the line is
the Mc.
Seismologi Undergrad 12
Why does estimating Mc
matter?
✓ Mc is a statistical way
to determine the quality
of an earthquake
catalog.
✓ A strong regional (or
sequence) catalog would
have a low Mc and would
therefore better capture
the whole seismic
picture.
Seismologi Undergrad 13
To know Mc: the earlier the better
• An incomplete catalog
would result in
unreliable or
inaccurate findings, or
choosing a different
time period may allow
for the use of lower
magnitude data (see
figure 3). Figure 3. This figure shows earthquake magnitudes over time with the
Mc for the dataset as a whole (red line) and Mc with time (orange
line). Looking at both values together gives researchers a clearer
picture of their dataset.
Seismologi Undergrad 14
Mc and seismic network performance
• Mc demonstrates where our monitoring capabilities are
strongest and what areas might be lacking.
• While large-scale, damaging earthquakes show up across the
network, background catalogs of smaller earthquakes in a
region can help to determine the region’s seismic potential.
• The magnitude of completeness in the Western Indonesia is
much lower than in Eastern due to denser station coverage.
• It’s important to understand we may not be detecting as many
small earthquakes in the east because of lack of equipment
instead of lack of earthquakes.
• Measuring the Mc gives us a way to gauge how detailed our
monitoring is in each region we cover.
Seismologi Undergrad 15
Mc and seismicity parameters 1
• Seismic hazard studies need accurate knowledge of
the spatial temporal distribution of seismicity and
the magnitude-frequency relation.
• Assessing the magnitude of completeness Mc of
instrumental earthquake catalogs is an essential
and compulsory step for any seismicity analysis.
Why?
Seismologi Undergrad 16
Mc and seismicity
parameters 2
• The Gutenberg-Richter b value and
the Mc are not independent, changing
the Mc may affect the b-value.
• The Omori Law p-value is calculated
from a complete catalog.
• Analyzing changes in seismic rates
(a value) require an accurate
determination of the Mc. Therefore,
forecasting and seismic hazard
assesment depend upon knowledge of
the Mc.
Seismologi Undergrad 17
Mc and The Gutenberg-Richter b value
Freq-Magnitude distribution
• 1976-2005 Global CMT
catalog
log(N) = a - bM
✓ The Gutenberg Richter b-value: It is the
slope of the line segment in the G-R
distribution which ideally starts at the
Mc and ends at the last magnitude value
in the aftershock catalog.
✓ b-value ratio of small and large
earthquakes
✓ Empirically, the value has been found to
be ~1.
Seismologi Undergrad 18
Why the value of b is important
Hazard Analysis: Small changes in b =>
large changes in projected numbers of
major earthquakes
Example
10 M ≥ 7 eqs
10,000 M ≥ 4
earthquakes 20 M ≥ 7 eqs
Earthquake Physics: The magnitude
distribution reflects fundamental properties
of how earthquakes grow and stop.
Seismologi Undergrad 19
Precision in earthquake locations
Seismologi Undergrad 20
Measurement errors of
seismic arrival times
• a seismic phase at a station is
usually marked by a change in
the amplitude and frequency
content of the seismic signal • To reduce uncertainty:
• to assign individual weights to each
• As any seismic signal is arrival time
affected by a certain level of • a probabilistic point of view, in which
noise and the phase arrival is the observation uncertainty is directly
not characterized by a delta related to the measured arrival time
pulse, the arrival time of a • Uncertainty estimates based on network
seismic phase is uncertain. criteria: nr.of obs, gaps, azimut
Seismologi Undergrad 21
Velocity model errors
• Model ≠ reality
• To use a large set of high-quality arrival times from
well-constrained earthquake locations→ Minimum 1-D
velocity models. Ex. Iaspei91, ak135
• Better to use 3-D velocity models for earthquake
locations → from seismic tomography
• Any model will be only as good as the quality of the
data which were used to compute the model. This means
that the quality of a velocity model can be strongly
hampered by the problem of phase misidentification →
Your phase picking.
Seismologi Undergrad Diambama et al, 2019 22
• KEY SEISMOLOGICAL PRACTICES:
Good catalog, should I care if I • Monitoring dynamic processes in
earth’s environment
don’t want to be researcher? • Societal challenges for seismology
are concentrated in the near-surface
YES YES YES! environment…
Seismologi Undergrad 23
References
• Bormann, P. (Ed.)(2012): New Manual of Seismological Observatory
Practice (NMSOP-2), Potsdam : Deutsches GeoForschungszentrum GFZ;
IASPEI. https://doi.org/10.2312/GFZ.NMSOP-2
• Diambama et al, (2019): Velocity structure of the earthquake zone of the
M6.3 Yogyakarta earthquake 2006 from a seismic tomography study. -
Geophysical Journal International, 216, 1, pp. 439—452. DOI:
http://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggy430
• Diantari et al, 2018 IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci. 132 012026
• Woessner, J., J.L. Hardebeck, and E. Haukkson (2010), What is an
instrumental seismicity catalog, Community Online Resource for
Statistical Seismicity Analysis, doi:10.5078/corssa-38784307. Available
at http://www.corssa.org.
Seismologi Undergrad 24
