Earthquake behavior in Sumatra territory based on time and distance between consecutive large event

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to understand the behavior of earthquakes with a specific magnitude (M) in the Sumatra territory based on their duration of time and the distance between two earthquakes that happen consecutively. We explore 1,641 data sets of duration and distances with a specific magnitude that were generated from 458 earthquakes with M ≥ 5.0 during 2009-2017. This study revealed that the occurrence of the later (second) earthquake at any location (referred to in this paper as a recurring earthquake) with a bigger or equal magnitude as the previous one depends on duration especially for magnitude under 5.8. The comparison analyses showed that the recurring earthquake events tended to have similar average distances. However, the length of time between two earthquakes is different for lower magnitudes (under 6.0), whereas between an earthquake and a recurring earthquake with a magnitude above 6.0, the length of time tends to be similar.