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Published October 2022 | Published
Journal Article Open

Geometrical properties of seismicity in California

Abstract

The spatial geometry of seismicity encodes information about loading and failure processes, as well as properties of the underlying fault structure. Traditional approaches to characterizing geometrical attributes of seismicity rely on assumed locations and geometry of fault surfaces, particularly at depth, where resolution is overall quite poor. In this study, we develop an alternative approach to quantifying geometrical properties of seismicity using techniques from anisotropic point process theory. Our approach does not require prior knowledge about the underlying fault properties. We characterize the geometrical attributes of 32 distinct seismicity regions in California and introduce a simple four class classification scheme that covers the range of geometrical properties observed. Most of the regions classified as having localized seismicity are within northern California, while nearly all of the regions classified as having distributed seismicity are within southern California. In addition, we find that roughly 1 out of 4 regions exhibit orthogonal seismicity structures. The results of this study provide a foundation for future analyses of geometrical properties of seismicity and new observables to compare with numerical modelling studies.

Additional Information

© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal Astronomical Society. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model) Revision received: 08 October 2021. Received: 08 May 2022. Accepted: 17 May 2022. Published: 19 May 2022. Corrected and typeset: 04 July 2022. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation (Grants EAR-2122168, EAR-2122191 and EAR-2034167) and the Southern California Earthquake Center (based on NSF Cooperative Agreement EAR-1600087 and USGS Cooperative Agreement G17 AC00047). The paper benefitted from useful comments by two anonymous referees and Editor Eiichi Fukuyama. DATA AVAILABILITY. The analysed seismic catalogues are publicly available from the Northern California Earthquake Data Center (https://ncedc.org) and Southern California Earthquake Data Center (https://scedc.caltech.edu).

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Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023