Description of earthquake aftershock sequences using prototype point patterns

We introduce the use of prototype point patterns to characterize the behavior of a typical aftershock sequence from the global Harvard earthquake catalog. These prototypes are used not only for data description and summary but also to identify outliers and to classify sequences into groups exhibiting similar aftershock behavior. We find that a typical shallow earthquake of magnitude between 7.5 and 8.0 has approximately five aftershocks of magnitude at least 5.5, and that within an observation window of 0.113 days to 2.0 years after the mainshock, these aftershocks are roughly evenly distributed in log‐time. The relative magnitudes and distances from the mainshock for the typical aftershock sequence are characterized as well. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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