The Lake Baikal Unified Scaling Law for Earthquake Regional Coefficients

Seismic hazard assessment requires an adequate understanding the earthquake distribution in magnitude, space, and time ranges. Lacking data for a period of several thousand years makes probabilistic approach to estimating the recurrence time of earthquakes unreliable. Nevertheless, the probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) maps keep actively refined both at global and national scales. At the same time alternative models and methods are being developed to improve the accuracy and reliability of reproducible seismic hazard maps that pass intensive testing of historical evidence and simulated scenario earthquakes. One of those, the neo-deterministic seismic hazard assessment (NDSHA) provides reliable and effective tools for understanding and mitigating object-oriented earthquake risks. Consider the unified scaling law for earthquakes (USLE) as a part of NDSHA. USLE is generalizing the Gutenberg-Richter relationship (GRL) as log10N(M, L) = A + B(6 − M) + Clog10 L, M− ≤ M ≤ M−, where N(M, L) is the number of magnitude M earthquakes in an area of linear size L, A characterizes the average level of seismic activity in terms of the annual rate of earthquakes of magnitude M = 6, B is the ratio N(M)/N(M − 1), C estimates fractal dimension of the set of epicenters, and [M−, M−] is the range where the relationship holds. Naturally, C complements to A and B (analogous to a and b of GRL) showing how the number of earthquakes changes with an area linear size. Recent studies have shown that using the USLE provides adequate estimation of seismic hazard at national or even regional scale when the existing earthquake data are a few decades long and rich enough in magnitude determinations.