Dynamical Patterns in Seismology

Earthquakes are important components of complex dynamical Earth systems known as geocomplexity. One of the main contributors to geocomplexity is the seismic process which notoriously displays nonlinear behaviors including the self-organization of many interacting components (tectonic plates, faults). These processes result in seismic (macro-scale) events of collective behaviors in the temporal, spatial and energy domains. In the chapter the results of both active and passive experiments on triggering/synchronization are presented. The dynamic patterns of seismicity are revealed by the application of nonlinear dynamics tools to time series from: “laboratory” earthquakes (acoustic emission during natural stick-slip and stick-slip under weak periodic forcing), regional seismicity of the Caucasus Mountains, local seismicity in the area of large reservoir during its construction and regular exploitation, as well as from analysis of variations in local seismicity in a Central Asia test area due to application of strong electric pulses. The review of recent results on dynamic triggering of local seismicity by remote earthquakes is also presented. It is shown that relatively weak external forcings can induce clear changes in modeled and real earthquake dynamics. Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA) proved to be an efficient method for finding hidden nonlinear structures is seismic time series. Quoting Webber and Zbilut (2005): “…whatever the case, whether it be forecasting dynamical events in the medical field, geophysics, or meteorology, the future of recurrence analysis looks bright and promising.”