Clustering Earthquake Migration on the Tibetan Plateau

Most earthquakes occur from an accumulation of stress, so investigating the migration of earthquakes can help us in understanding the tendency of stress adjustments and accumulations for deducing the tendency of future earthquakes. In this work, we use a clustering technique to analyze the spatial migration of earthquakes so that we can derive a trend to the changes in stress and adjustments of earthquakes through time. We look at 38 years of earthquake data on the Tibetan plateau at discrete time slices ranging from 7 to 15 years. Nonlinear trends discovered in earthquake migration since 1970 are compared to historical data of migration in the Tibetan plateau for deriving patterns. Visualization techniques are used to enhance understanding of cluster relationships and behaviors since viewing clusters in three-dimensions at different orientations and rotations allows for necessary complex multidimensional analysis and correlation of earthquake data.