ESTIMATION OF SEISMICITY AND NETWORK DETECTION CAPABILITY

Abstract : The problem of estimating seismicity and the performance of a system which detects earthquakes is formulated in such a way that maximum likelihood estimation can be applied. The mean number of earthquakes which occur in a fixed time interval is assumed to be of the form exp (a-bm) where m is magnitude and a and b are constants. The probability of detection as a function of m is taken to be an error function. Procedures to obtain maximum likelihood estimates of a, b, and the error function mean and variance factors are derived, discussed, and applied to experimental data to check the relevance of the theoretical development.