(Cathryn, avert your eyes, sorry)
Posted by John Vidale on October 03, 2003 at 15:40:22:

Chris and Roger,

I took a look at the numbers, and plotted them myself a couple of ways.

First, the general character of the aftershocks versus distance averaged to 5-10 degree scales -

You can probable guess how the distribution should look:
if aftershock occurrence were not affected by prior earthquakes, the probability would be proportional to the area of the Earth's surface at that distance, or the sine of the distance. So growing linearly for a while, then leveling off at 90 degrees, and falling back towards 0 at 180 degrees. To first order, that is what the curve does.

The exception is close in, within 20 or 30 degrees of the earthquake there is more activity than would be present at random. According to my prejudices, only 0-5 degrees or so should show such a bump, so there is a suggestion of triggered activity out to surprisingly large distances. It may be, however, that earthquakes tend to be in seismically active zones, which might produce a similar curve, so a better test would be to compare this distribution with the same set of earthquakes at random times, to separate the spatial pattern of active areas from the triggered aftershocks.

Then the fine structure -

The only anomalous feature is the peak at 101 degrees, with 9 events, and 102 with a moderately high number. However, 103, 104, and 105 degrees have very FEW events.
The rest of the peaks fall with a reasonable distribution, although there's a bit of a shortage of bins with 3.

So there is some suggestion of something at 101, although it is not compelling, and the 0-20 excess could be investigated.

John


Follow Ups:
     ● Re: (Cathryn, avert your eyes, sorry) - Cathryn  22:34:54 - 10/3/2003  (19582)  (2)
        ● A novel? What's that? - John Vidale  08:15:49 - 10/4/2003  (19593)  (0)
        ● Re: (Cathryn, avert your eyes, sorry) - Cathryn  22:47:42 - 10/3/2003  (19583)  (2)
           ● Dictionaries? - John Vidale  08:25:00 - 10/4/2003  (19594)  (1)
              ● Re: Dictionaries? - Cathryn  10:06:12 - 10/4/2003  (19595)  (1)
                 ● the high life - John Vidale  11:04:49 - 10/4/2003  (19597)  (1)
                    ● Re: the high life - Cathryn  00:55:54 - 10/6/2003  (19604)  (1)
                       ● thanks - John Vidale  08:14:46 - 10/6/2003  (19605)  (1)
                          ● de nada - My old stomping ground!  22:58:38 - 10/6/2003  (19607)  (1)
                             ● misc - John Vidale  23:54:38 - 10/6/2003  (19608)  (1)
                                ● Sylmar,Santa Cruz, and promonitions - Cathryn  22:34:40 - 10/7/2003  (19612)  (1)
                                   ● small world - John Vidale  09:26:49 - 10/8/2003  (19616)  (1)
                                      ● Re: small world - Cathryn  02:59:05 - 10/10/2003  (19629)  (1)
                                         ● have an image to maintain - John Vidale  08:45:50 - 10/10/2003  (19631)  (1)
                                            ● Re: have an image to maintain - Cathryn  19:17:40 - 10/10/2003  (19643)  (1)
                                               ● synchronicity et al - John Vidale  20:49:03 - 10/10/2003  (19644)  (1)
                                                  ● Re: synchronicity et al - Cathryn  23:06:39 - 10/11/2003  (19647)  (1)
                                                     ● email - John Vidale  08:46:46 - 10/13/2003  (19664)  (1)
                                                        ● Re: email - Cathryn  22:55:06 - 10/13/2003  (19671)  (1)
                                                           ● no j in the email address - John Vidale  08:41:38 - 10/14/2003  (19676)  (1)
                                                              ● Re: no j in the email address - Cathryn  02:50:46 - 10/15/2003  (19683)  (1)
                                                                 ● the book arrived - John Vidale  08:51:36 - 10/15/2003  (19684)  (1)
                                                                    ● Re: the book arrived - Cathryn  20:21:56 - 10/15/2003  (19693)  (1)
                                                                       ● quirky is good - John Vidale  10:59:17 - 10/16/2003  (19694)  (1)
                                                                          ● the world just got smaller - Cathryn  00:12:11 - 10/18/2003  (19755)  (1)
                                                                             ● hmm - John Vidale  08:16:46 - 10/18/2003  (19763)  (1)
                                                                                ● Re: hmm - Cathryn  13:22:49 - 10/20/2003  (19791)  (1)
                                                                                   ● not yet - John Vidale  17:57:10 - 10/20/2003  (19793)  (1)
                                                                                      ● Re: not yet - Cathryn  18:22:45 - 10/20/2003  (19794)  (0)
           ● I Did Not - Don in Hollister  23:07:06 - 10/3/2003  (19585)  (1)
              ● The Hell You Didn't - Cathryn  23:25:12 - 10/3/2003  (19586)  (0)