Multifractal analysis of the spatial distribution of earthquakes in southern Italy

We evaluate the complete spectrum of the generalized fractal dimension of the spatial pattern of microearthquakes in Southern Italy, revealing a multifractal distribution structure. Our analysis is focused on the dependence of the multifractal distribution on the size of the selected area and the kind of seismicity in the area. As the size of the window varies, we observe that the capacity, information and correlation dimensions vary significantly, while both d _∞ and d _−infin; remain unchanged within their errors limits. We interpret this result in terms of the observation that our data are mainly clustered around a linear fault (the Sisifo fault). When we restrict the selected windows around the fault, clustering around a line (the fault) is highlighted. The capacity dimension changes from about 1.8 to about 1.4 and the correlation dimension decreases because we observe in detail the clustering of the seismicity along the fault, which approximates the maximum intense clustering of the whole data set. Although our results are strongly influenced by the fact that the data are dominated by the epicentres located on the fault, we can conclude that multifractal analysis can be a very useful tool to discriminate the seismicity linked to a particular fault in a given area.     

Self-organized criticality and earthquake predictability

We analyse a seismic catalogue of South California to investigate the possibility of earthquake prediction using the hypothesis that the seismic events are self-organized critical phenomena. The relation found previously is valid only in a mean field approximation, but cannot be used for earthquake prediction because the time clustering of seismic events makes the definition of a standard deviation of waiting times of earthquakes impossible.     

Stability of C60 and C70 fullerenes toward corpuscular and γ radiation

The stability of C₆₀ and C₇₀ fullerenes in the interstellar medium deposited on dust surface or embedded in meteorites and comets has been simulated with γ irradiation and with He⁺ ion bombardment. It is shown by vibrational spectroscopy that a γ radiation dose of 2.6 MGy (1 Gy = 1 joule absorbed energy per kilogram) causes partial oligomerization of both C₆₀ and C₇₀ fullerenes. Oligomers are made by fullerene cages chemically connected each other which can yield back free fullerenes by a thermal treatment. The amount of irreversibly polymerized fullerenes caused by 2.6 MGy as deduced as the toluene insoluble fraction has been determined as 1.7 and 15 per cent by weight, respectively, for C₆₀ and C₇₀ fullerene. The radiation dose generated by radionuclides decay and expected to be delivered to fullerenes buried at a depth of more than 20 m in comets and meteorites is about 3 MGy per 10⁹ yr. Since fullerenes are by far resistant to such radiation dose they can survive for at least some billion years inside comets and meteorites and in fact have been detected inside certain carbonaceous chondrites. On the other hand, the direct exposure of fullerenes to cosmic rays for instance when they are adsorbed or deposited on the surface of carbon dust corresponds to the delivery of a radiation dose comprised between 30 and 65 MGy per 10⁹ yr. Experimental bombardment of both C₆₀ and C₇₀ fullerenes for instance with He⁺ ions has shown that the complete amorphization occurs at about 250 MGy. Thus in ∼4 Gyr exposure to cosmic rays it is expected a complete amorphization.     

Intermittent behaviour of volcanic tremor at Mt. Etna

Harmonic tremor is widely studied and modelled in a very narrow frequency band (1–5 Hz) which represents the eigenfrequencies of a resonator assumed as the source of the phenomenon. Minimal effort was dedicated towards understanding its behaviour in larger temporal scales. Here we characterise the dynamic behaviour of volcanic tremor while evaluating the complete spectrum of the generalised dimension of the phase space. The starting time series constitutes the tremor amplitude picked every 10 minutes. The choice of this lag time is made on the basis of a qualitative analysis of the properties of the tremor. The results show intermittent behaviour of the dynamics which requires an 8-dimensional map to be completely described. An interesting result is that the maximum clustering of point density in phase space occurs in a monodimensional space which implies a periodicity sometimes observed experimentally. An appropriate predictive model needs more constraints on the nature of the eight variables involved in the process.     

Is the seismic moment–frequency relation universal?

We evaluate the seismic moment–frequency relation for the Harvard catalogue in the period 1977–1994. This catalogue is composed of about 12 000 earthquakes. After selection of events in terms of depth and energy, we retain about 8000 data points. We estimate two parameters of the seismic moment distribution: the power exponent β and the cut-off value M _m . The method used is a least-squares linear fit on a log–log scale performed over a range selected on the basis of the standard deviation from the histogram. The analysis is carried out for different subdivisions of the Earth in square grids of different sizes. Neither parameter exhibits a dependence on cell size, suggesting the universality of their values and the interpretation of the existence of a cut-off as a finite size effect linked to a finite catalogue length. The variations of the parameters are investigated as a function of time (duration of the catalogue) and versus the number of events used for building up the distribution. Again, β and M _m do not depend on time, but M _m depends on the number of events, reaching a stable value for N ≈ 1000. The only significant change in the parameters is observed for different values of M _0upper in the catalogue, revealing the existence of universality classes.     

Effects of conspecifics on settling juveniles of the invasive golden mussel, Limnoperna fortunei

We conducted a field experiment to assess the influence of conspecific adults on recruitment success of the golden mussel Limnoperna fortunei. Tiles, 225 cm² surface area, were used as artificial substrates in four treatments: control (blank tiles), low (800 mussels m⁻²), medium (4,000 mussels m⁻²) and high (12,000 mussels m⁻²) density treatments. Results indicated that recruitment was strongly affected by the presence and density of conspecifics. After one and 3 months of exposure, numbers of recruits were significantly higher on tiles with conspecific adults than on blank tiles, and there was a positive and significant relationship between the number of recruits and the number of adults in the three treatments assayed. Also, after 3 months of exposure, recruits in all treatments with adults present were larger than recruits in the control treatment. Our results suggest that conspecific adults have a positive effect on recruitment success and growth of newly settled juveniles through factors that enhance larval settling or that contribute to the survival of settlers in areas colonized by adult conspecifics.     

Crossing the phantom divide with a classical Dirac field

In this paper we consider a spatially flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmological model with cosmological constant, containing a stiff fluid and a classical Dirac field. The proposed cosmological scenario describes the evolution of effective dark matter and dark energy components reproducing, with the help of that effective multifluid configuration, the quintessential behavior. We find the value of the scale factor where the effective dark energy component crosses the phantom divide. The model we introduce, which can be considered as a modified ΛCDM one, is characterized by a set of parameters which may be constrained by the astrophysical observations available up to date.