A Non-Extensive Statistical Physics View of the Temporal Properties of the Recent Aftershock Sequences of Strong Earthquakes in Greece

Abstract

Greece is one of Europe’s most seismically active areas. Seismic activity in Greece has been characterized by a series of strong earthquakes with magnitudes up to Mw = 7.0 over the last five years. In this article we focus on these strong events, namely the Mw6.0 Arkalochori (27 September 2021), the Mw6.3 Elassona (3 March 2021), the Mw7.0 Samos (30 October 2020), the Mw5.1 Parnitha (19 July 2019), the Mw6.6 Zakynthos (25 October 2018), the Mw6.5 Kos (20 July 2017) and the Mw6.1 Mytilene (12 June 2017) earthquakes. Based on the probability distributions of interevent times between the successive aftershock events, we investigate the temporal evolution of their aftershock sequences. We use a statistical mechanics model developed in the framework of Non-Extensive Statistical Physics (NESP) to approach the observed distributions. NESP provides a strictly necessary generalization of Boltzmann–Gibbs statistical mechanics for complex systems with memory effects, (multi)fractal geometries, and long-range interactions. We show how the NESP applicable to the temporal evolution of recent aftershock sequences in Greece, as well as the existence of a crossover behavior from power-law (q ≠ 1) to exponential (q = 1) scaling for longer interevent times. The observed behavior is further discussed in terms of superstatistics. In this way a stochastic mechanism with memory effects that can produce the observed scaling behavior is demonstrated. To conclude, seismic activity in Greece presents a series of significant earthquakes over the last five years. We focus on strong earthquakes, and we study the temporal evolution of aftershock sequences of them using a statistical mechanics model. The non-extensive parameter q related with the interevent times distribution varies between 1.62 and 1.71, which suggests a system with about one degree of freedom.