New Evidence on the Fractal Pattern of Sumatra Fault Seismicity and Its Possible Application to Earthquake Prediction

by Sigit Sukmono

Abstract

Sukmono et al. (1997) suggested that there is a repetitive pattern, called the fractal pattern of the Sumatra Fault System (SFS) seismicity, correlating the times of large shallow earthquakes (depth ≤ 50 km, 5 ≤ m_b ≤ 7.0) that occurred along SFS segments with fault segment geometric fractal dimension (D) values. By using this repetitive pattern, two earthquakes that occurred between 1995 and 1996 in the SFS were successfully predicted. Since this 1997 article, there have been four large shallow earthquakes that have occurred in the SFS, e.g., in the Aceh (three times) and Kepahiang segments. These four earthquakes follow the suggested fractal pattern of SFS seismicity and hence again show the applicability of this pattern to long-term earthquake prediction along the SFS.

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