not easy to answer
Posted by John Vidale on July 23, 2007 at 08:22:28:

I was out of town for a few days.

Your question is tough because it is hard to separate isolated foreshocks from earthquakes that are part of swarms of earthquakes in the earthquake catalogs.

Our suspicion is that foreshocks have either more or fewer aftershocks than non-foreshocks, depending to whom you are listening. There might be fewer if the b values of foreshock sequences are such that they are more dominated by the bigger events, and there might be more if the activity indicates some ongoing deformation or fluid redistribution that raises the odds of future earthquakes.

Or others say foreshocks are indistinguishable from non-foreshocks by any measure.

I hope it is clear that we can not identify differences between foreshocks and normal earthquakes using the catalogs of millions of earthquakes we have already, let alone by trying to remember how a few dozen earthquake sequences have unfolded in our memories.


Follow Ups:
     ● Philosophically speaking.. - Glen  08:58:47 - 7/23/2007  (72279)  (1)
        ● practically speaking - John Vidale  11:22:41 - 7/23/2007  (72282)  (1)
           ● You nailed it... - Glen  18:12:22 - 7/23/2007  (72291)  (0)