Analysis of the spatial and temporal distributions between successive earthquakes: Nonextensive statistical mechanics viewpoint

The spatial and temporal distributions between successive earthquakes are treated in the framework of nonextensive statistical mechanics. We find temporal distributions exhibit the power law behavior; q-exponential with q > 1. It means the earthquakes are strongly correlated in time. The spatial distributions obey the q-exponential form with q < 1. We also examine the dependence of the q exponent on magnitude range, covering period, time interval and size of the region where data are gathered. The conjecture of Abe et al. [S. Abe, N. Suzuki, Physica A 350 (2005) 588] has been examined for different categories of data. The results show a strange relation between q values of the spatial and temporal distributions. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.