Analysis of earthquake hypocenter characteristics using chaos game representation

This paper proposes a new method to approach earthquake hypocenter studies based on Chaos Game Representation (CGR), a method initially used for making fractal structures and applied for studying DNA sequences. Applying the CGR method, this study aims at checking whether any relation exists between earthquakes occurring in different depth ranges in a seismically active area. For this purpose, the seismically active areas around the Indian tectonic plate were used. The CGR images gave characteristic patterns, implying that the occurrence of earthquakes in some specific depth range combinations showed higher preference. Statistical data on the frequency of different depth range combinations were derived from these plots. We put forward a mathematical value which we call proximity index, to compare the similarity between two different CGR plots. Proximity index values were used to compare the similarity in seismic activity in two different zones by comparing their respective CGR plots.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10596-022-10187-x.