Are Earthquake Magnitudes Clustered?

Abstract

The question of earthquake predictability is a long-standing and important challenge. Recent results [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 098501 (2007); Phys. Rev. Lett.100, 038501 (2008)] have suggested that earthquake magnitudes are clustered, thus indicating that they are not independent in contrast to what is typically assumed. Here, we present evidence that the observed magnitude correlations are to a large extent, if not entirely, an artifact due to the incompleteness of earthquake catalogs and the well-known modified Omori law. The latter leads to variations in the frequency-magnitude distribution if the distribution is constrained to those earthquakes that are close in space and time to the directly following event.