ULF Pre-Seismic Geomagnetic Anomalous Signal Related to Mw8.1 Offshore Chiapas Earthquake, Mexico on 8 September 2017

• Main Authors: Dragoș Armand Stănică, Dumitru Stănică
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-01-01
• Series: Entropy
• Subjects: ULF pre-seismic geomagnetic signal; Mw8.1 Chiapas-Mexico offshore earthquake; Teoloyucan and Tucson geomagnetic observatories; Cocos-North America subduction zone
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/21/1/29

In the last decade, the real time ground–based geomagnetic observations realized in correlation with the Vrancea seismicity in Romania, together with supplementary studies related to some earthquakes (Mw9.0 Tohoku, Japan on 11 March 2011 and Mw8.3 Coquimbo, Chile on 16 September 2015), enlarged our knowledge about the relationship between the pre-seismic anomalous phenomena and the final stage of the earthquake nucleation. To identify possible ultra-low-frequency (ULF) geomagnetic signals prior to the onset of an Mw8.1 earthquake, we retroactively analyzed the data collected on the interval 1 August–16 September 2017 at the Geomagnetic Observatories in Teoloyucan (TEO), Mexico and Tucson (TUC) USA, with the last taken as a reference. Daily mean distributions of the polarization parameter BPOL (geomagnetic polarization parameter) and standard deviation are obtained for both observatories using a fast Fourier transform (FFT) band-pass filtering in the ULF range (0.001–0.083 Hz). Further on, we investigated the singularity of the pre-seismic signal associated with an Mw8.1 earthquake and applied a statistical analysis based on a standardized random variable equation; results are presented as BPOL* time series on the interval 1–26 September. Finally, the hourly mean distribution, obtained as difference BPOL (TUC-TEO) on the interval 7–9 September emphasizes an anomalous signal with five hours before the onset of the Mw8.1 earthquake.