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RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES VOL. 12, ES1002, doi:10.2205/2011ES000502, 2011

Modeling and simulating an aftershock process caused by a strong earthquake in the Barents Sea shelf

S. V. Baranov

Kola Branch of Geophysical Survey of RAS, Apatity, Murmansk Region, Russia


Abstract

The paper considers an aftershock process caused by an Mw = 6.1 earthquake which occurred on 21 February 2008 in the Storfjord channel (Spitsbergen). The earthquake was the strongest in the history of seismic monitoring on the Barents Sea shelf. To study the aftershock process, some relaxation models of aftershock decay rate and the Epidemic-type Aftershock-sequences (ETAS) model of triggered seismicity were fitted.

It was shown that the aftershock process was a superposition of two subprocesses relaxation and trigger. Each of the subprocesses was simulated using a relevant model. Based on the modeling, a hypothesis of Storfjord seismicity connected with fluid effect on the local stress field was suggested.

Received 26 April 2011; accepted 29 April 2011; published 4 May 2011.

Keywords: Aftershock process; model of aftershock decay rate; ETAS model; aftershock process simulating; Spitsbergen


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Citation: Baranov, S. V. (2011), Modeling and simulating an aftershock process caused by a strong earthquake in the Barents Sea shelf, Russ. J. Earth Sci., 12, ES1002, doi:10.2205/2011ES000502.

Copyright 2011 by the Geophysical Center RAS