On the frequency distribution of interoccurrence times of earthquakes

The distributions of discrete frequency, N, versus interoccurrence time, t (in days), of M 7 earthquakes in the Taiwan region during the 1900–1994 period, M 6 earthquakes in the north-south seismic belt of China during the 1900–1990 period, and M 5.5 earthquakes in Southern California, U.S.A., during the 1914–1995 period are studied through two statistical models (gamma function and exponential function). Results show that both the exponential function and gamma function can describe the distributions. However, the former is more appropriate than the latter. This indicates that the three time series of earthquakes have a significant component of Poisson processes, even though the tectonic conditions, the fault distributions and the size of the three seismic regions are different.