Journal of Physics: Conference Series

PAPER • OPEN ACCESS

Anticorrelation between the elastic ratio γ and the b-value in a spring-

block SOC-model of earthquakes
To cite this article: J Perez-Oregon et al 2019 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 1221 012061

View the article online for updates and enhancements.

This content was downloaded from IP address 189.216.66.251 on 19/06/2019 at 16:07

IX International Congress of Physics Engineering IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1221 (2019) 012061 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1221/1/012061

Anticorrelation between the elastic ratio  and the b-value in a

spring-block SOC-model of earthquakes

J Perez-Oregon1*, A M Aguilar-Molina 1, A H Rudolf-Navarro1, A Muñoz-

Diosdado2 and F Angulo-Brown1
1
Departamento de Física, Escuela Superior de Física y Matemáticas, Instituto
Politécnico Nacional, UP Zacatenco, C.P. 07738, Cd. de México, México.
2
Departamento de Ciencias Básicas, Unidad Profesional Interdisciplinaria de
Biotecnología, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Cd. de México, México.

*E-mail: jnnfr.po@gmail.com

Abstract. In the present work we propose that some results recently published by our group
(Perez-Oregon et al. 2018 J Seismol. 22 1025-1035) can be used for explaining qualitatively a
correlation established by Ruff and Kanamori (1980 Phys. Earth Planet. Inter. 23 240-252)
between the age of tectonic plates and the magnitude of the maximum characteristic earthquake
of the corresponding tectonic zone. In addition, an equivalent behavior between sliding
surfaces made with sandpapers also can be explained. These possible explanations stemms
from a computational model proposed by Olami et al. (1992 Phys. Rev. Lett. 68 1244-1247) for
emulating synthetic earthquakes by means of a cellular automaton applied to a dynamic system
in a self-organized critical state.

1. Introduction
Recently, we have published an article [1] where we suggest that there exists a positive correlation
between the so-called Gutenberg-Richter (GR) parameters a and b [2]. As it is well known the
Gutenberg-Richter relationship between the number of earthquakes and their magnitudes is given by
[2,3]:

log Ṅ = a − bM (1)

where a and b are the GR parameters; 𝑁̇ is the number of earthquakes per year with magnitude larger
than M. The a-value is a measure of the regional level of seismicity and the b-value is the slope of the
straight line represented by Eq. (1). The positive correlation between a- and b-values was confirmed
by using real world seismic catalogs, as those used by Bayrak et al. [4] corresponding to 27 seismic
regions around the world. In addition, we confirm our proposal by means of synthetic seismic catalogs
obtained by a spring-block model used to emulate the interaction between two tectonic plates, which is
a kind of toy model proposed by Olami, Feder and Christensen (OFC) [5] within the context of self-
organized critical (SOC) processes [6, 7]. This model is implemented by means of cellular automata
[5, 8]. A third confirmation of the mentioned positive correlation was accomplished by using data
stemming from frictional experiments made with sliding surfaces made with sandpapers of several
grades [9]. The b-value of the actual world seismicity is around one [10]. Remarkably, nevertheless
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution
of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd 1
IX International Congress of Physics Engineering IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1221 (2019) 012061 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1221/1/012061

the simplicity of the spring-block SOC model proposed by Olami et al. [5] it reproduces a b-value
practically equal to one as it occurs in average for the actual world seismicity. This b=1 in the OFC
model is obtained for  g in the interval [0.19, 0.21], being g an elastic ratio [1, 5] that characterizes
the elastic properties of the springs connecting the blocks of the OFC-model one to each other. In the
present paper we show that the OFC spring-block SOC model has certain further properties that agree
with actual properties of both real seismicity and sandpapers experiments. The article is organized as
follows: In Section 2 we present a brief review of the OFC-SOC spring-block model; in Section 3 we
discuss the anticorrelation between the OFC-SOC elastic ratio g and the b-value of the corresponding
GR-type plot made with data generated with OFC-SOC synthetic seismic catalogs; in Section 4 we use
the mentioned anticorrelations to propose possible explanations of some features present in
experiments with sandpapers and also some behaviors observed in actual seismicity. Finally, in
Section 5 we present the conclusions.

2. Spring-block model
The spring-block model involves a two-dimensional dynamic system formed by a network of blocks
interconnected by springs, which have at most a total of four neighbors, for blocks that are not on the
network boundary. Additionally, they are connected by springs to an upper rigid plate which moves
with a small and constant speed (see Figure 1 of [5]). Between the blocks and the bottom plate there
exists a friction force. A block will slip when the force over it is larger than some threshold value 𝐹𝑡ℎ
(the maximal static friction). The movement of the block will redistribute the forces in its nearby
neighbors. This can lead to a chain reaction, made up of more slidings. The dynamics of the OFC
model is obtained by using the method of cellular automata. The cellular automaton will consist of a
lattice of size 𝐿 × 𝐿, where on each block acts a force 𝐹𝑖,𝑗 , with i and j integers between 1 and L. The
total force exerted by the springs on a given block (i,j) is expressed by [5, 11]

Fij = K1 [2xi,j − xi−1,j − xi+1,j ]

+ 𝐾2 [2𝑥𝑖,𝑗 − 𝑥𝑖,𝑗−1 − 𝑥𝑖,𝑗+1 + 𝐾𝐿 𝑥𝑖,𝑗

where 𝐾1 , 𝐾2 and 𝐾𝐿 are the elastic constants. After a local slip at the position (i,j), the force
redistribution is given by,

Fi±1,j → Fi±1,j + δFi±1,j ,

Fi,j±1 → Fi,j±1 + δFi,j±1 ,
𝐹𝑖,𝑗 → 0

where the force increase in the nearest neighbors is given by,

𝐾1
δFi±1,j = 𝐹 = 𝛾1 𝐹𝑖,𝑗 ;
2𝐾1 + 2𝐾2 + 𝐾𝐿 𝑖,𝑗
𝐾2 (2)
δFi,j±1 = 𝐹 = 𝛾2 𝐹𝑖,𝑗 ;
2𝐾1 + 2𝐾2 + 𝐾𝐿 𝑖,𝑗

where 𝛾1 and 𝛾2 are the elastic ratios. For the isotropic case (𝛾1 = 𝛾2 = g), the OFC model reproduces
the GR power law with an exponent close to the actual one for g =0.2 [5]. The elastic ratios (defined in
Eq. (2)) can take values in the interval 0<g<0.25. However, the values of the parameter b of the
Gutenberg-Richter law that are similar to real seismicity b-values are only obtained for g around 0.2
[5, 12, 13]. For the isotropic case, 𝐾1 = 𝐾2 = 𝐾𝐿 (𝛾1 = 𝛾2 = 𝛾) with a rigid frontier condition,

2
IX International Congress of Physics Engineering IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1221 (2019) 012061 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1221/1/012061

implying that 𝐹 = 0 in it. The size of a synthetic earthquake is the number n of relaxed blocks. We can
define its magnitude as a function of n, M = log x (n), where x is a convenient base of the logarithm.
To generate synthetic earthquakes OFC map the spring-block model into a continuous, non-
conservative cellular automaton that will follow the next evolution rules:

1) Initialize all the sites of the lattice with random values between zero and a force threshold 𝐹𝑡ℎ .
2) Locate the block with the largest force, 𝐹max . Add 𝐹𝑡ℎ − 𝐹max to all sites (global
perturbation).
3) For all 𝐹𝑖,𝑗 ≥ 𝐹𝑡ℎ , redistribute the force in the neighbors of 𝐹𝑖,𝑗 according to the rule

Fn,n → Fn,n + δFi,j ,

𝐹𝑖,𝑗 → 0

where Fn,n are the forces of the neighbor blocks of the cell Fi,j that relaxed.
4) Step 3 must be repeated until the earthquake has completely evolved.
5) Once a state of rest has been reached, return to step 2 until the number of events (synthetic
earthquakes) to be observed is completed.

3. Anticorrelation between  and b-value in a SOC model

A series of simulations were performed varying gamma values in the interval [0.05, 0.24] with jumps
of 0.01 for each lattice size L with the following values: L = 35, 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250. For a
value of L and a particular value of , say 0.05, we perform a run of 10 million of synthetic events, and
then we estimate the b-value in the Gutenberg-Richter relationship (Eq. (1)). We made the same for
each  -value in the mentioned interval. Therefore, for each L we have 20 b-values and 20  -values on
which we look for a linear regression. In Table 1 we report for each L the value of the correlation
coefficients R (as well as the coefficient of determination R2). As it can be seen in Table 1 in all of the
cases the resulting correlation is negative and with absolute value ≥ 0.924 ; that is, the anticorrelation
between b and  is very high. In Figure 1(a) we show a linear regression between the b-values and
the  -values for a lattice of L=35, the linear fitting is given by: b = -13.49  + 3.69 . For all the L-
sizes listed in Table 1 the linear fitting is similar. Evidently, the curve fitting the b and  data is not a
straight line, but in all cases corresponding to Table 1 the curves are monotonically decreasing (see
Figure 1b)). The behavior observed in Figure 1(a) for L=35 was reported by OFC (see Figure 2(b) of
[5]). However, these authors did not mention that this anticorrelated behavior between b and  is
maintained for many other values of L (see Table 1). In the following section we shall put forth that
this anticorrelated behavior could be useful to qualitatively understand some properties of sliding
experiments with sandpapers on the one hand and also some properties of real seismicity on the other
hand.

Table 1. Correlation ( R ) and determination ( R2 )

coefficients between  and b-value for  in the interval
[0.05, 0.24] with jumps of 0.01 for each value of L .
L R R2
35 -0.969 0.94
50 -0.952 0.905
100 -0.935 0.875
150 -0.924 0.854
200 -0.947 0.898
250 -0.944 0.89

3
IX International Congress of Physics Engineering IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1221 (2019) 012061 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1221/1/012061

Figure 1. Linear regression of  and b values for a) L=35 and b) L=35,50,100,150,200,250 .

Figure 2. a) GR-type graphs of log N(A) against sliding amplitudes for four stick-slip experiments:
two curves for sandpapers of coarse grit sizes (40-36) and two for fine grit sizes (220-180). b)
Cumulative distribution of sliding events N(s) for a gross sandpaper. Gutenberg–Richter laws-type
for five consecutive runs are observed. The linear regression and standard errors of the distributions
are: 𝑏1 = 0.220 ± 0.004 , 𝑏2 = 0.224 ± 0.003 , 𝑏3 = 0.351 ± 0.004 , 𝑏4 = 0.2560 ±
0.004 and 𝑏5 = 0.374 ± 0.007.

4
IX International Congress of Physics Engineering IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1221 (2019) 012061 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1221/1/012061

4. Experiments with sandpapers and actual seismicity

Some authors [9, 14] have used experimental arrays based on sliding surfaces subject to a driving
force to obtain reasonable analogues of GR law of seismicity. For example, Vargas et al. in [9] used an
aluminum block sliding over a frictional surface with asperities (sandpaper of several grades). The
block is coated in its inferior surface by the same kind of sandpaper used for covering the track over
which the block slides. A fishing string connects the aluminum block with a motor through a pulley
(for details, see [9]). This way, numerous time series of stick-slip are generated. In Figures 3 and 4 of
[9], we observed an aging effect, consisting in the diminution of the largest sliding amplitude of the
block according to successive runs of the experiments wearing the same sandpaper. That is, the
sandpaper was suffering a weathering after each run. In addition, a second effect was observed after
the successive runs, consisting in the increase of the slope of the GR-like straight lines in the plane of
number of sliding events against the amplitude of such sliding events. In reference [1] we suggested
that there exists a correspondence between the fine grain sandpapers and small  elastic parameters
and the coarse grain sandpapers and large  elastic parameters respectively (being  the OFC-SOC
elastic ratio, see Eq. (2)). This proposal was motivated by the concordance between Figures 6 and 7 of
[1] for sandpapers and SOC-OFC model respectively. Now, Figure 6 of [1] is Figure 2(a) of the
present article, and Figure 4 of [9] is our Figure 2(b). In this last figure is clear how the slope of the
GR-type straight line corresponding to the run number five (b = 0.37) is larger than the slope
corresponding to the run number one (b = 0.22). That is, the aging effect is expressed in a twofold
manner: the maximum amplitude A in run one (A > 5) is larger than the maximum amplitude in run
five (A = 2.8) on one hand and the mentioned relation between slopes on the other hand. As we said in
Section 3, there exists an anticorrelation between the GR-slope and the elastic ratio . This
anticorrelation is also expressed in the aging effect with sandpapers experiments mentioned above.
This way, nevertheless the simplicity of the premises of the OFC-SOC model is impressive that at
least qualitatively reproduces many features of frictional experiments. As we suggested in [1] fine
grains correspond to small values of  and coarse grains correspond to large values of , in the case of
the aging experiments discussed above, after the run five the weathered sandpaper has finest grains
than the new sandpaper of run one. Therefore, these experiments agree with the anticorrelation
observed in the OFC-SOC model. Another interesting example showing the anticorrelation between
the GR-parameter b and the elastic ratio  observed in the OFC-SOC model also appears in actual
seismicity. In 1980, Ruff and Kanamori [15, 16] published a very important diagram relating the
seismicity to the two variables: convergence rate and age of the subducting oceanic lithosphere. In this
diagram one can observe that Marianas seismic zone has an age of around 150 millions of years and
that its maximum earthquake is 𝑀max = 7.2 and on the other hand the Chilean trench has an age of
around 20 millions of years and with 𝑀max = 9.5. That is, the younger the tectonic zone the greater
the maximum magnitude of their characteristic earthquake and the older the tectonic zone the smaller
the maximum magnitude of their characteristic earthquake. Evidently, the Chilean trench corresponds
to the first case and Marianas corresponds to the second case. In regard with the GR b-value of the two
mentioned tectonic zones, these are: [4] For Marianas trench 𝑏1 = 0.68 and for Chile trench 𝑏2 =
0.53; that is, 𝑏1 > 𝑏2 in analogy with what happens with the sandpaper experiments (see Figure 2(b))
and also in analogy with what happens with the OFC-SOC spring-block model for earthquakes (see
Figure 7 of [1]). Therefore, within the three discussed fields (OFC-SOC model, sandpapers
experiments and actual seismicity) the anticorrelation between the elastic ratio  and the GR b-value
holds.

5. Conclusions
Starting from a result exhibited in [5] consisting in the anticorrelation between the elastic ratio  and
the b-value in the Gutenberg-Richter relationship within the context of a spring-block SOC model for
a lattice size L=35 , we have observed that this behavior is valid practically for any lattice size. Thus,
this anticorrelation seems to be very general. In the present article we have used this property of the

5
IX International Congress of Physics Engineering IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1221 (2019) 012061 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1221/1/012061

OFC-SOC model of synthetic earthquakes to explain some features of experimental arrays of sliding
objects made with sandpapers of different grades and also some features of actual seismicity. We
suggest that the aging effect both in sandpapers and tectonic plates can be qualitatively explained by
means of the anticorrelated behavior between  and the b-value observed in the OFC-SOC model.

Acknowledgments
This work is supported by CONACYT and COFAA. FAB, AMD and AHRN thanks partial support by
COFAA-IPN and EDI-IPN; and AMAM and JPO thanks support by CONACYT-México.
References
[1] Perez-Oregon J, Muñoz-Diosdado A, Rudolf-Navarro A H, Guzmán-Sáenz A and Angulo-Brown F 2018
Journal of Seismology 22 1025-1035
[2] Gutenberg B and Richter C F 1944 Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 34 185-188
[3] Gutenberg R and Richter C F 1954 Seismicity of the Earth and Associated Phenomena (Princeton, New
Jersey: Princeton University Press)
[4] Bayrak Y, Ylmaztürk A and Oztürk S 2002 Journal of Geodynamics 34 653-666
[5] Olami Z, Feder H J S and Christensen K 1992 Physical Review Letters 68 1244-1247
[6] Bak P, Tang C and Wiesenfeld K 1987 Physical Review Letters 59 381-384
[7] Bak P, Tang C and Wiesenfeld K 1988 Physical Review A 38 364-374
[8] Wolfram S 1983 Reviews of Modern Physics 55 601
[9] Vargas C A, Basurto E, Guzman-Vargas L and Angulo-Brown F 2008 Physica A: Statistical Mechanics
and its Applications 387 3137-3144
[10] Frohlich C and Davis S D 1993 Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth 98 B1 631-644
[11] Christensen K and Olami Z 1992 Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth 97 B6 8729-8735
[12] Angulo-Brown, F. and Muñoz-Diosdado, A. 1999 139 410-418
[13] Munoz-Diosdado A, Rudolf-Navarro A H and Angulo-Brown F 2012 Acta Geophysica 60 740-757
[14] Feder H J S and Feder J 1991 Physical Review Letters 66 2669-2672
[15] Ruff L and Kanamori H 1980 Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 23 240-252
[16] Lay T and Wallace T C 1995 Modern Global Seismology (London: International Geophysics Elsevier
Science)