On the earthquake predictability of fault interaction models

Space-time clustering is the most striking departure of large earthquakes occurrence process from randomness. These clusters are usually described ex-post by a physics-based model in which earthquakes are triggered by Coulomb stress changes induced by other surrounding earthquakes. Notwithstanding the popularity of this kind of modeling, its ex-ante skill in terms of earthquake predictability gain is still unknown. Here we show that even in synthetic systems that are rooted on the physics of fault interaction using the Coulomb stress changes, such a kind of modeling often does not increase significantly earthquake predictability. Earthquake predictability of a fault may increase only when the Coulomb stress change induced by a nearby earthquake is much larger than the stress changes caused by earthquakes on other faults and by the intrinsic variability of the earthquake occurrence process. Key PointsOften, fault interaction models do not improve earthquake forecasting skillWe define a simple parameter that indicates when fault interaction mattersWe find some requirements to get a time synchronization of faults ©2014. The Authors.