Are seismic waiting time distributions universal?

Abstract

We show that seismic waiting time distributions in California and Iceland have many features in common as, for example, a power-law decay with exponent $\alpha \approx 1.1$ for intermediate and with exponent $\gamma \approx 0.6$ for short waiting times. While the transition point between these two regimes scales proportionally with the size of the considered area, the full distribution is not universal and depends in a non-trivial way on the geological area under consideration and its size. This is due to the spatial distribution of epicenters which does \emph{not} form a simple mono-fractal. Yet, the dependence of the waiting time distributions on the threshold magnitude seems to be universal.