Work

AutoBETA: Fully Automated Earthquake Catalog Replenishment Tool

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Incomplete earthquake catalogs, especially for early aftershocks, pose challenges for accurate seismological analysis. This study introduces Auto-Biscale Empirical Transformation Application (AutoBETA), a fully automated earthquake data replenishment tool that builds upon previous semiautomated approaches by integrating grid-based density analysis with flexible missing region identification. This tool also supports user-defined polygons and hybrid strategies (union or intersection) to incorporate expert knowledge. We applied AutoBETA to one synthetic incomplete catalog and four real-earthquake catalogs: the 2008 Mw 7.9 Wenchuan, 2024 Mw 7.5 Noto, 2010 M 5.26 Baja California, and 2016 M 6.06 Norcia sequences. The analyses were conducted using magnitude thresholds of M ≥ 3.0, M ≥ 2.0, M ≥ 1.0, and M ≥ 2.0. After 100 fully automated iterations, the method replenished 43.9%, 40.0%, 40.5%, and 44.8% of the final catalogs. These results substantially improve catalog completeness, enabling more robust aftershock modeling and statistical analysis. AutoBETA is implemented in Python and is available as open-source software on GitHub.

Source: Seismological Research Letters

DOI: 10.1785/0220250253

Authors: Chengxiang Zhan, Jiancang Zhuang, Stephen Wu

Institutions: China University of Geosciences, China University of Geosciences (Beijing), The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Research Organization of Information and Systems, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI

Language: English

Topic: earthquake and tectonic studies

Subfield: Geophysics

Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Sustainable cities and communities

Open Access status: hybrid

OpenAlex ID: W7164925965

FWCI:

Cites: 17

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