Low detection capability of global earthquakes after the occurrence of large earthquakes: investigation of the Harvard CMT catalogue

We investigated the detection capability of global earthquakes immediately after the occurrence of a large earthquake. We stacked global earthquake sequences after occurrences of large earthquakes obtained from the Harvard centroid-moment tensor catalogue, and applied a statistical model that represents an observed magnitude-frequency distribution of earthquakes to the stacked sequence. The temporal variation in model parameters, which corresponds to the detection capability of earthquakes, was estimated using a Bayesian approach. We found that the detection capability of global earthquakes is lower than normal for several hours after the occurrence of large earthquakes; for instance, the duration of lowered detection capability of global earthquakes after the occurrence of an earthquake with a magnitude of seven or larger is estimated to be approximately 12 hr.