A graph theoretic approach to global earthquake sequencing: A Markov chain model

We construct a directed graph to represent a Markov chain of global earthquake sequences and analyze the statistics of transition probabilities linked to earthquake zones. For earthquake zonation, we consider the simplified plate boundary template of Kagan, Bird, and Jackson (KBJ template, 2010). We demonstrate the applicability of the directed graph approach to hazard-related forecasting using some of the properties of graphs that represent the finite Markov chain. We extend the present study to consider Bird's 52-plate zonation (2003) describing the global earthquakes at and within plate boundaries to gain further insight into the usefulness of digraphs corresponding to a Markov chain model.