Power law relationship between parameters of earthquakes and precursory electrical phenomena

Abstract. A number of Seismic Electric signals data have been accumulated during the last two decades that also includes the signals observed before the magnitude 6 class earthquakes that occurred in Greece very recently i.e., the first two months of 2008.

Using all the available data we investigate whether a possible interconnection exists between the lead time of Seismic Electric Signals and the stress drop of subsequent earthquakes. We show that for "non thrust" earthquakes a power law relation emerges with an exponent value around 0.29, the possible physical meaning of which is discussed. This value is very close to the range of critical exponents that govern the fracture processes and is also comparable with the value of the slope, found much earlier by the VAN group, in the linear relation between the logarithm of the SES amplitude and the earthquake magnitude.