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 178 International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering
ISSN 0974-5904, Volume 04, No 06 SPL, October 2011, pp. 178-182

A Study on Clustered and De-Clustered World-Wide Earthquake Data Using

G-R Recurrence Law
J Daniel Ronald Joseph
Scientist, CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre, Taramani, Chennai – 600113, Email: daniel@sercm.org
K Balaji Rao
Scientist, CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre, Taramani, Chennai – 600113, Email: balaji@sercm.org
M B Anoop
Scientist, CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre, Taramani, Chennai – 600113, Email: anoop@sercm.org

ABSTRACT: Occurrence of earthquakes is common in regions of the world where the tectonic setting of the region is
such that it is capable of storing sufficient strain energy that may cause fracture along fault plane. Even-though it is not
possible to prevent the earthquakes from occurring, engineers and scientists work on the way the lives and the properties
could be saved. In this context, Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA), has become popular and is being
adopted in many countries to design the buildings and structures to resist the earthquake forces that it may experience
during their life time. In performing PSHA, value of ‘b’, appearing in the Gutenberg-Richter (G-R) earthquake
recurrence law, plays an important role in quantifying the uncertainty in the magnitude of the earthquake. It is the scope
of this paper to study the world-wide earthquake data, collected for a period of around eleven decades (1898-2011),
using G-R recurrence relationship and it is found that, for both clustered and de-clustered world-wide earthquake data,
G-R recurrence law exhibits bi-linear trend for a wide range of magnitude considered.

KEY WORDS: Earthquake, Gutenberg-Richter recurrence law, Moment magnitude, Mean recurrence rate.

INTRODUCTION
An earthquake is a series of vibrations on the earth's
surface caused by generation of elastic seismic waves due
to the sudden rupture of the faults within the earth during
the release of accumulated strain energy (India
Meteorological Department). The Earth’s lithosphere is
broken up into what are called tectonic plates. Earthquake
that occurs within a tectonic plate is referred to as Intra-
plate earthquake. There may be regions seismically active
or dormant within a tectonic plate. An Inter-Plate
earthquake is the one that occurs at the plate boundaries.
The measure of an earthquake’s size is very important. It
can be measured in two ways, namely intensity and
magnitude. The oldest measure of earthquake’s size is the
intensity scale. The earthquake intensity is a qualitative
description of the effects of the earthquake at a particular
location, as evidenced by observed damage and human
reactions at that location. Various intensity scales were
used to quantify the earthquakes. The Rossi-Forel (RF)
scale of intensity, describing intensities using values
ranging from I to X, was developed in the 1880’s and was
used for many years. Later, Modified Mercalli Intensity
(MMI) scale, which was developed by the Italian
seismologist Mercalli, replaced the RF scale. The intensity
scales that are known to be popularly used are given in
Table 1.
Table 1: Intensity scales (Kramer, 1996)
Intensity
Inventors Abbreviations
values
Rossi-Forel I–X RF
Modified Mercalli I – XII MMI
Japanese Met. Agency I – VII JMA
Medvedev-Spoonheuer-Karnik I – XII MSK
The development of modern instruments helped us in
obtaining a quantitative measure of the size of
earthquakes. Earthquake magnitude is a quantification of
the size of earthquakes in terms of its energy. The
earthquake magnitude is independent of the place of
observation. There are different types of earthquake
magnitudes used. Some of magnitude scales used are,
moment magnitude, Mw, body-wave magnitude, Mb,
surface-wave magnitude, Ms, local magnitude, ML,
duration magnitude, Md, primary coda magnitude, Mc,
helicorder magnitude, Mh, maximum amplitude magnitude
and Mx, Energy magnitude, Me.
EARTHQUAKE RECURRENCE
In order to calculate the mean recurrence rate of
earthquakes for a region, exceeding a particular
magnitude, data on the past earthquakes of the region is
necessary to be known. Gutenberg and Richter were the
first to propose a recurrence law for earthquakes which we
now call as Gutenberg-Richter (G-R) recurrence law.
They collected data of southern California earthquakes
over a period of many years and organised the data
according to the number of earthquakes that exceeded
different magnitudes during that time period. They
defined mean annual rate of exceedance, λm, of an
earthquake of magnitude ‘m’ as the number of
exceedances of that magnitude earthquakes divided by the
length of time period of the earthquake data considered.
The mean return period of earthquakes exceeding a
specific magnitude is the reciprocal of the mean annual
rate of exceedance. A linear relationship was observed
when the logarithm of the mean annual rate of exceedance
was plotted against earthquakes magnitude and the
relation is given by,

#020410144 Copyright © 2011 CAFET-INNOVA TECHNICAL SOCIETY. All rights reserved

 A Study on Clustered and De-Clustered World-Wide Earthquake Data Using
G-R Recurrence Law
Log10λm = a – bm (1a)
i.e., λm = 10a-bm (1b)
where, λm, is the mean annual rate of exceedance of
magnitude ‘m’, 10a is the yearly number of earthquakes of
magnitude greater than or equal to zero, and ‘b’ describes
the relative likelihood of large and small earthquakes. The
‘b’ value decreases with the increase in occurrence of
larger magnitude earthquakes and vice versa.
The purpose of Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis
(PSHA) is to evaluate the hazard of the seismic ground
motion at a site by considering all the possible
earthquakes in the area, estimating the associated shaking
at the site, and calculating the probability of these
occurrences (Aki, 1988). PSHA takes into account the
uncertainties in the size, location and the rate of
recurrence of earthquakes in evaluating the seismic
hazard. The value of ‘b’ which is one of the parameters
used in the PSHA is used to quantify the uncertainties in
the earthquake size. The value of ‘b’ is the slope of the
line in the G-R plot (Eqn.1a). In this paper it is analysed
that, whether a single line fit will suit good- or a bi-linear
fit should be used- to represent the earthquake data.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
In this section, a brief survey of literature is presented
which clearly deals in detail the characteristics of ‘b’
value. Kulhanek (2005) has reported that ‘b’ is a tectonic
parameter describing the relative abundance of larger to
smaller earthquake events. He also has commented that
‘b’ seems to represent properties of the seismic medium in
some respect, like stress and/or material conditions in the
focal region. He has described in detail the essential
characteristics of b-values, evaluation techniques and their
applicability in earthquake prediction. He has also
explained in detail the reason it may be attributed to, for
why the linear fit always doesn’t fit for the log λm vs m
plot and suggests that a non-linear fit will best suit to
represent the recurrence law of the earthquakes.
Bayrak et al (2002) studied the lateral distribution of
modal (a/b) values for the entire world. In their work, the
earth was divided into 27 regions which were classified
based on tectonic regions and it was observed that the
modal value is high for the oceanic subduction zone. As
pointed out by Kulhanek (2005), they have also indicated
that there is a correlation between the ‘b’ value and the
stress associated with the earthquake and finally have
concluded that the modal values represent the seismicity
of any region better than the ‘a’ and ‘b’ values.
Khan (2005) calculated ‘b’ values for the four layers of
earth’s crust considered, based on the focal depth, beneath
the shillong plateau. He has discussed the spatial variation
of ‘b’ value in the region along the four layers considered
and has commented that the cause of the earthquake in the
shillong plateau is unclear; whether it is due to the faults
or lineaments at the intermediate or deeper level.
Sinadinovski and McCue (2001) estimated the mean
International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering
ISSN 0974-5904, Volume 04, No 06 SPL, October 2011, pp. 178-182
179
earthquake recurrence rate for Australia. They have
suggested that a bi-linear fit for Eqn.1a will suit good to
represent the data rather than a linear fit since the linear fit
would over estimate the occurrence rate of large events
and under-estimate the rate in the mid-magnitude range.
Utsu (1999) studied the earthquake data of Japan using
Gutenberg-Richter relationship. He has mentioned that G-
R plot exhibits some deviation from the straight line and
some of the modifications that have been proposed are
truncated G-R relation, two-range G-R relation and
equations with additional terms in the original G-R
relation. He studied which of these equations will suit
good to represent the earthquake data of Japan and has
observed that, in some cases the original equation seems
to represent the earthquake data better and in some other
cases, it does not.
As seen from the above literature review, it can be
understood that there are still differences in the opinion
among the researchers in plotting the G-R recurrence
relation for a wide range of magnitude. The value of ‘b’
from the G-R plot for an earthquake database depends on
how the G-R recurrence relation is plotted, either by a
single straight line or bi-linear or multi-linear line or
exponential fall-off after a specific magnitude. The fits
other than a single straight line will result in number of ‘b’
values depending upon the fit that is used. In performing
PSHA, since it is the ‘b’ value that quantifies the
uncertainty in the magnitude of the earthquakes, decision
on the number of ‘b’ values should be first decided before
performing PSHA for any region.
AFTERSHOCKS OF EARTHQUAKE
It is known that foreshocks and aftershocks are associated
with the main earthquake events. Foreshocks and
Aftershocks are the minor earthquake events that occur
before and after the main shock in the same region,
respectively. In order to understand the recurrence rate of
the earthquakes, only the main events should be
considered. But an earthquake database may contain both
the foreshocks and aftershocks events (Clustered data).
So, before beginning any analysis, the foreshocks and
aftershocks events should be removed from the earthquake
database to have only the main shocks retained in the
earthquake database (De-clustered data). There are
different methods to remove the aftershocks from the
clustered data, the most familiar being the method
proposed by Gardner and Knopoff (1974) which has been
used in this study.
SCOPE OF THE WORK
This work is carried out to study the world-wide
earthquake data using G-R recurrence relationship and
examine whether the world-wide earthquake data (both
clustered and de-clustered data) can be represented by a
single line fit for the entire range of magnitude
considered, which will result in one b-value or demands
bi-linear fit for the G-R plot demanding two values of ‘b’
to be used in PSHA. The method proposed by Gardner
 180 J Daniel Ronald Joseph, K Balaji Rao, M B Anoop

and Knopoff (1974) has been used to remove the

aftershocks from the earthquake database prepared.

EARTHQUAKE DATA SOURCE AND

MAGNITUDE CONSISTENCY
The world-wide earthquake data used in this study has
been taken from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)-ANSS
catalogue. A total of about 2.2 million data was collected
spanning years from 1898 to 2011.
In using the Gutenberg-Richter recurrence law,
consistency in the earthquake magnitude scale should be
maintained. In this study, moment magnitude scale which
does not depend on the ground motion and hence does not Fig 2 G-R plot for clustered data with trendlines
saturate (Kramer 1996) has been decided to be used as the
measure of earthquake size. The collected earthquake data
has earthquake magnitudes in different magnitude scales,
viz., Mw, Mb, Ms, ML, Mx, Mh, Md, Mc and Me. To
maintain consistency in the earthquake magnitude scale,
magnitude conversion relations from the published
literature were collected to convert different earthquake
magnitude scales to moment magnitude scale.

STEPS FOLLOWED
1. Earthquake catalogue with around 2.2million
earthquake data has been prepared. The length of the
time period of the earthquake catalogue prepared is
≈114 years (from 1898 A.D to 2011 A.D)
2. The earthquake data which were in different
magnitude scales were converted to equivalent
moment magnitude scale using appropriate magnitude
conversion relationship.
3. Mean annual rate of exceedance, λm, was calculated.
4. The logarithm of mean annual rate of exceedance (log
λm) was plotted against earthquake magnitude (Mw).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results of the study are shown in the Figs 1 through 4.
Fig 1 shows the G-R plot for the clustered and de-
clustered earthquake data, with a bin size of 0.25, that
have been collected. It can be seen that, both the clustered
and de-clustered earthquake data show variation in trend
for different ranges of magnitudes and hence, linear fit for
magnitude range considered will not hold good to
represent the entire data. It is observed that the earthquake
data can be grouped based on the magnitude ranges, viz.,
0-1.2, 1.2-4.0, 4.0-8.8 and >8.8.
Fig 3 G-R plot for De-clustered data with trendlines
Kulhanek (2005) reported that, for larger magnitude
earthquakes, the frequency of the earthquake occurrence
decreases more rapidly, than linearly and hence, a non-
linear fit may in some cases be a better approximation of
observed data. He gives the following explanation for
such deviations,
1. At small magnitudes, it is the incompleteness of
earthquake data in the catalogue. It is also said that, it
is not only due to the incompleteness of the data, but
the number of small earthquakes are smaller than the
number as we would get when extrapolated from the
larger earthquakes.
2. At large magnitudes, it is the saturation of magnitude
scales. Another reason is that, the length of the
catalogue is very small with no large earthquakes
measure in the past.

Kagan (1993) by transforming the magnitude-frequency

G-R relationship to seismic moment-cumulative frequency
scale, has pointed out that, considerations of finiteness of
the deformational energy available for an earthquake
generation and the finite size of tectonic plates required
that the power-law relation have to be modified at the high
end of the moment scale. Also, he has stated that
evidences exist for the moment-cumulative frequency
relation to bend down at the large size end of the
distribution for the world-wide earthquake data.

He also talks about the characteristic earthquake

Fig.1 G-R plot for clustered and de-clustered data distribution which presupposes the existence of two
earthquake populations: Characteristic earthquakes, and

International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering

ISSN 0974-5904, Volume 04, No 06 SPL, October 2011, pp. 178-182
 A Study on Clustered and De-Clustered World-Wide Earthquake Data Using
G-R Recurrence Law
Regular earthquakes which include the foreshocks and
aftershocks of the characteristic earthquakes. He states
that, because the earthquake occurrence is dependent on
the stress distribution and the geometry of the faults,
power-law moment-frequency is only a first
approximation.
In the simulation model, to control the mean size of the
earthquakes in the size-frequency distribution, Vere Jones
(2001) proposed a version of G-R power law with an
exponential fall-off as suggested by Kagan, in which the
mean size is controlled by the location of the fall-off.
Also, Scholz, in his book (2002), has described the reason
for the change in the slope after a specific magnitude as
the saturation of the magnitude of the earthquakes
measured. He has observed this change in slope of the G-
R plot at magnitude of about 7.5. The world-wide
database he has considered spans for the years 1900 to
1989.
Similar observations are made in the present study also.
Because the linear fit did not suit well to represent the
earthquake data for the entire magnitude range considered,
the G-R plot has been modelled with different trends
considering the earthquake data in two ranges, viz., 4.0-
8.8 and >8.8. Since significant damages are not caused to
the structures by the earthquakes of magnitude < 4.0, the
magnitude range less than 4.0 are not shown in the Figures
2 & 3. It is observed that the linear fit matches well for
each magnitude range 4.0-8.8 and > 8.8. The values of ‘b’
in the lower and the upper magnitude range for the
clustered and de-clustered data are 0.897 & 1.556 and
0.866 & 1.556 respectively.
It is observed from the Fig 1 that, if the linear fit made for
4.0 ≤ Mw ≤ 8.8, is extrapolated to a lesser magnitude, say
0.05, it will result in higher numbers of smaller earthquake
events that should have occurred in the past. But we find
that the earthquake database does not show such a high
number of earthquakes. It is inferred here that, definitely
such higher number of earthquakes of lower magnitudes
could have occurred but could have gone unfelt by the
people or unrecorded, obviously because of insignificant
ground motion. Thus it may be that, the G-R plot will
follow a linear path from magnitude as low as 0.05 to ≈8.8
after which it may take different linear path.
To know about the energy that has been released by the
earthquakes, the clustered database has been considered.
Clustered database is adopted here because the energy
released by the aftershocks should also have to be
considered in calculating the total energy released by the
earthquakes. Fig 4 shows the plot of the magnitude vs
total energy released in the logarithmic scale for
magnitude >4.0. It is found that the energy release of the
earthquakes follow an exponential path in the logarithmic
scale.
International Journal of Earth Sciences and Engineering
ISSN 0974-5904, Volume 04, No 06 SPL, October 2011, pp. 178-182
181
Fig 4 Total energy released in logarithmic scale
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
A study has been carried out on the world-wide
earthquake data using the Gutenberg-Richter recurrence
relationship. The world-wide earthquake data spanning
over eleven decades having different magnitude scales
were collected and was converted to equivalent moment
magnitude scale. It was found in the G-R plot, for both
clustered and de-clustered world-wide earthquake data, a
single linear fit for a wide magnitude range will not suit
good to represent the data. A change in the recurrence
pattern was observed approximately at magnitude of 8.8.
And hence, a linear fit in the range 4.0-8.8 and a different
linear fit in the range >8.8 were used to represent the
world-wide earthquake data. The values of ‘b’ estimated
in this study may not be comparable with the reported
values of ‘b’ for any particular region due to the high non-
linearity in the earthquake phenomena that varies from
region to region. It is very well understood that in the G-R
plot, a single linear fit does not represent the earthquake
data in a better way for a wide magnitude range, and
hence two different linear fits shall have to be considered
in the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis for any region.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This paper is being published with the kind permission of
The Director, CSIR-SERC, Chennai.
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