An application of earthquake prediction algorithm M8 in eastern Anatolia at the approach of the 2011 Van earthquake

On 23rd October 2011, an M7.3 earthquake near the Turkish city of Van, killed more than 600 people, injured over 4000, and left about 60,000 homeless. It demolished hundreds of buildings and caused great damages to thousand others in Van, Ercis, Muradiye, and Caldiran. The earthquake’s epicenter is located about 70 km from a preceding M7.3 earthquake that occurred in November 1976 and destroyed several villages near the Turkey–Iran border and killed thousands of people. This study, by means of retrospective application of the M8 algorithm, checks to see if the 2011 Van earthquake could have been predicted. The algorithm is based on pattern recognition of Times of Increased Probability (TIP) of a target earthquake from the transient seismic sequence at lower magnitude ranges in a Circle of Investigation (CI). Specifically, we applied a modified M8 algorithm adjusted to a rather low level of earthquake detection in the region following three different approaches to determine seismic transients. In the first approach, CI centers are distributed on intersections of morphostructural lineaments recognized as prone to magnitude 7 + earthquakes. In the second approach, centers of CIs are distributed on local extremes of the seismic density distribution, and in the third approach, CI centers were distributed uniformly on the nodes of a 1∘×1∘ grid. According to the results of the M8 algorithm application, the 2011 Van earthquake could have been predicted in any of the three approaches. We noted that it is possible to consider the intersection of TIPs instead of their union to improve the certainty of the prediction results. Our study confirms the applicability of a modified version of the M8 algorithm for predicting earthquakes at the Iranian–Turkish plateau, as well as for mitigation of damages in seismic events in which pattern recognition algorithms may play an important role.