SPATIAL STATISTICS AND POINT PATTERN ANALYSIS OF EARTHQUAKE DISRIBUTION IN THE ZAGROS REGION(IRAN)

This study presents the results of statistical point pattern analysis of earthquake epicenters in the Zagros region of Iran during 1995-2016. For this purpose, Nearest Neighbour Ratio, Moran’s I and Getis-Ord’s G indices were estimated and computed for the whole data catalog. The Nearest Neighbour Analysis results indicate a completely clustered pattern of epicenters for the whole region and also indicate that earthquakes with greater magnitudes show higher degrees of clustering. Also, the Moran’s I and High/low clustering (G Index) analyses results indicate that both for magnitude and focal depth attributes, a spatial autocorrelation of higher values are observed. The results of this study indicate that the point pattern analysis techniques reliably could be employed for revealing the seismicity pattern in tectonically active regions

Keywords:

Point pattern analysis , Earthquake pattern recognition , Seismicity , Spatial statistics , Seismotectonics