Chaotic Behavior in Great Earthquakes —Coupled Relaxation Oscillator Model, Billiard Model and Electronic Circuit Model—

Abstract

Great earthquakes (magnitude>7) apparently occur stochastically, but there is a possibility that the stochasticity is due to some deterministic mechanism; i.e., due to chaos. Detailed study of a simple earthquake model is given which shows a chaotic behavior. This is also the simplest model of coupled relaxation oscillators and has topologically the same structure as the Lorenz model.