Long Term Earthquake Prediction in the New Guinea-Bismarck Sea Region Based on the Time and Magnitude Predictable Model

Abstract

The New Guinea-Bismarck Sea region has been divided into 17 seismogenic sources on the basis of certain seismological and geomorphological criteria. In each of these sources the interevent times between successive main shocks with magnitudes equal to or larger than certain cut-off magnitudes were considered. These interevent times as well as the magnitudes of the main shocks have been used to determine the following relations: log T_t = 0.36M_min + 0.28M_p - 0.49 logM_o + 9.58, ME = 0.74M_min-0.31M_p+0.49logM_o-8.53, where T_t is the calculated interevent time measured in years, M_min is the magnitude of the smallest main shock considered, M_p and M_E are the magnitudes of the preceding and the expected main shocks and M_o is the yearly released seismic moment in each source. On the basis of these relations and considering the date and the magnitude of the last main shock, conditional probabilities for the next 10 years (1993-2002) and the magnitude of the expected main shock in each source were determined.