Precursory swarm and its application for long range earthquake forecasting in Taiwan region

At trenches a few earthquake swarms of low magnitude have been observed before the medium size earthquake swarms. The first swarm was designated as precursory swarm and the second as mainshocks. Seismicity fluctuations before six such mainshocks events of medium size earthquakes of magnitudes ranging from 5.3 to 6.1 occurring in the east belt of Taiwan region have been discussed. A precursory gap between the precursory swarm and mainshock events has been observed. The duration of the gaps increases with magnitudes of the mainshocks suggesting a causal relationship between the two. Regression equations between the largest magnitude in the precursory swarms, the largest mainshock magnitude and the precusory gaps have been given.