Temporal Variations of Earthquake Magnitude-Frequency Relation in the Source Area of M ≥ 6.0 Earthquakes: A Systematic Survey in Taiwan

Recent studies in the earthquake magnitude-frequency relation (b-value) found that the b-value can decrease with time before large earthquakes in the source area. Such a decrease even coincided with a burst of foreshocks immediately before the earthquakes implying a preslip migrating toward the nucleation zone. We systematically survey the b-value variations in space and time in the source area of 17 earthquakes with magnitudes greater than ML 6.0 in Taiwan. We relocated the earthquakes released by the Central Weather Administration of Taiwan since 2012 as timing can provide a sufficiently low completeness magnitude (MC) of 1.5. We carefully determine the spatiotemporal search criteria on seismicity in the source area of all targeted earthquakes. We surveyed the temporal b-value systematically using moving time windows with a given number of earthquake events with the magnitudes greater than MC. We found the b-value decreased clearly for 2 days before the 2018 ML 6.3 Hualien earthquake, coinciding with a burst of ML 5.8 earthquake and its aftershocks nearby as foreshocks. The foreshocks migrated updip toward the hypocenter of the 2018 ML 6.3 Hualien earthquake and revealed a second decrease in the b-value 10 hours before it occurred. The b-value precursor primarily comes from a rapid reduction of small earthquakes in the foreshocks and agrees with recent key findings of preslip. However, there is no strong correlation between the b-value precursor and coseismic slip. Apart from this, the b-values did not change significantly in most cases of earthquakes in Taiwan before and after they occurred. Direct evidence for the precursor of a large earthquake is rare and difficult to be quantified accurately. Earthquake magnitude-frequency relation (b-value) is a classic observation implying stress accumulation on a seismogenic fault. Scientists found that the b-value can decrease within a few days before an impending large earthquake in the source area. Taiwan is one of the regions undergoing frequent M >= 6.0 earthquakes and can map the b-value in high resolution based on the relocated earthquakes. This study systematically surveyed the b-value in the source area of seventeen ML >= 6.0 earthquakes in Taiwan, probing into b-value precursor in the 8-year time series. We found that the b-value had a robust decrease 2 days before the 2018 ML 6.3 Hualien earthquake, coinciding with the initiation of foreshocks nearby and at a downdip of the hypocenter of the 2018 ML 6.3 Hualien earthquake. The foreshocks showed clear evidence of precursor as they migrated updip toward the hypocenter with a second decrease in the b-value 10 hours before the earthquake occurred. We found no evidence of a b-value precursor in most of the targeted earthquakes that agrees with the knowledge of precursor as happening episodically and unexpectedly. We found a b-value precursor that coincides with foreshocks for 2 days before the 2018 ML 6.3 Hualien earthquake in the source areaThe b-value precursor correlates with foreshock distribution in the source area and is likely uncorrelated to the high coseismic slipThere is no significant change in the b-value before M >= 6.0 earthquakes in Taiwan in a majority of the cases that we analyzed