Aftershocks as a Time Independent Phenomenon

Abstract

Sequences of aftershocks following Omori's empirical law are observed after most major earthquakes, as well as in laboratory-scale fault-mimicking experiments. Nevertheless, the origin of this memory effect is still unclear. In this letter, we present an analytical framework for treating labquake and earthquake catalogs on an equal footing. Using this analysis method, we show that when memory is considered to be in deformation and not in time, all data collapse onto a single master curve, showing that the timescale is entirely fixed by the inverse of the strain rate.