Review and citation of abstracts for paper Earthquake fault

triggering and synchronization using ant colony interaction model

development: A geodynamic approach based on the articles in
Journal of Earth System Science
Sir I had done my work of studying the reviewers coments and have found that somewhere the
reviewer is associated or is probably P.Varotsos who checked the paper. the website link is P
Varotsos and please click on the url http://physlab.phys.uoa.gr/org/director.htm
Here is the review details
In short, the authors in this ms present a new view on earthquake genesis modeling, which may
lead to a better understanding for the generation of earthquake precursory phenomena. To
achieve this goal, they make use of modern aspects of the Physics of Complex Systems such as
criticality, self organized criticality, long range correlations etc. The matter discussed is
challenging and in addition fits in the aims of the journal. Hence, I think that this ms merits
publication, but there are some deficiencies which should be appropriately addressed before its
acceptance. In particular, the authors should bring their ms in accord with earlier works
by other authors (which unfortunately are non-cited here) and hence the following changes are
recommended:
Lines 159-162: The idea of the seismogenic crust to have seismic zones or basins that
trigger large motions is a conclusive evidence of the phenomena conducive stress accumulates
in critical state (Evison and Rhoades, 2004; Scholz, 1991) This idea on criticality has been
earlier introduced in
1.Varotsos, P., and K. Alexopoulos. "Physical properties of the variations of the electric field of
the earth preceding earthquakes, I." Tectonophysics 110.1 (1984): 73-98 and 2. P. Varotsos and
K. Alexopoulos, Physical properties of the variations of the electric field of the earth preceding
earthquakes, II. Determination of epicenter and magnitude, Tectonophysics 110, 99-125, 1984
and discussed in more detail in 3.P. Varotsos, K. Alexopoulos and M. Lazaridou, Latest aspects
of earthquake prediction in Greece based on Seismic Electric Signals II, Tectonophysics 224, 137 1993.
Lines 282-284: The most notable feature of earthquake model lies in the spring block system
as proposed by Burridge and Knopoff,1967 to sand pile model proposed by Bak and Tang,1989.
I would add here in parenthesis the following recent information: For a recent analysis
of the spring block model see
4.Varotsos, P. A., et al. "Natural-time analysis of critical phenomena: The case of seismicity."
EPL (Europhysics Letters) 92.2 (2010): 29002.
, while for the sandpile model see
5.Varotsos, P., Sarlis, N. V., Skordas, E. S., Uyeda, S., & Kamogawa, M. (2011). Natural time
analysis of critical phenomena.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(28), 11361-11364.

Lines 293-296: When a vacancy is formed at the boundary subjected to a tensile stress, a
force b2
tends to move distance, b; where b3
is directly proportional to the atomic volume.
The energy required to create the vacancy is reduced by amount . By similar measure energy
required to create boundary at compressive is increased by amount . An earlier model
stating that the corresponding energy required is proportional to the mean atomic volume has
been published in 6. P. Varotsos and K. Alexopoulos, Calculation of the formation entropy of
vacancies due to anharmonic effects, Physical Review B 15, 4111-4114, 1977.
7. P. Varotsos, W. Ludwig and K. Alexopoulos, Calculation of the formation volume of
vacancies in solids, Physical Review B 18, 2683-2691, 1978.
Lines 307-309: The short-term forecast of especially large earthquakes (M 6) based on size
triggering functions dumps the saved up pressure on all surface of the Earth in critical points
arising in an earth's crust.
The determination of the occurrence time for a number of earthquakes with M >6 has been
discussed by
8. N.V. Sarlis, E.S. Skordas, M.S. Lazaridou, and P.A. Varotsos, Investigation of the
seismicity after the initiation of a Seismic Electric Signal activity until the main shock,
Proceedings of the Japan Academy, Ser. , 84, 331-343, 2008.
based on the concept
of the approach to a critical point.
Lines 422-423: Simulations prove that there is a close proximity of local dynamics and long
range interactions having a connection with stress evolution.
This proximity is an important result of simulations and hence its interconnection with recent
experimental results should be stressed. Thus, I would suggest here the following addition:
This is strengthened by the recent results
9. P. A. Varotsos, N. V. Sarlis, E. S. Skordas, and M. S. Lazaridou, Seismic Electric Signals: An
additional fact showing their physical interconnection with seismicity Tectonophysics, Vol. 589
(2013) 116125. tecto2013.pdf
and which show the following: Upon employing natural time analysis
10. P.A. Varotsos, N.V. Sarlis, and E.S. Skordas, Long-range correlations in the electric signals
that precede rupture, Phys. Rev. E, 66, 011902 (7), 2002.
P.A. Varotsos, N.V. Sarlis, and E.S. Skordas, Long-range correlations in the electric signals
that precede rupture: Further investigations, Phys. Rev. E, 67, 021109 (13), 2003.

11. P.A. Varotsos, N.V. Sarlis, and E.S. Skordas, Attempt to distinguish electric signals of a
dichotomous nature, Phys. Rev. E. 68, 031106 (7), 2003.
it was found that a characteristic change of seismicity is observed around a measuring site at
which precursory signals, termed Seismic Electric Signals activities
P. Varotsos, K. Alexopoulos and M. Lazaridou, On recent seismic electrical signal activity in
nothern Greece, Tectonophysics 188, 403-405, 1991.
are emitted which is
simultaneous with a similar change identified at remote distances, i.e., more than around 1000
km. Similar changes of seismicity have been also recently found
12. Nicholas V. Sarlis, Efthimios S. Skordas, Panayiotis A. Varotsos, Toshiyasu Nagao, Masashi
Kamogawa,Haruo Tanaka, and Seiya Uyeda. Minimum of the order parameter fluctuations of
seismicity before major earthquakes in Japan, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 110 (2013) 13734-13738.
pnas110_13734.pdf

to occur before all earthquakes of magnitude 7.6 or larger in Japan

from 1 January 1984 until the Tohoku M9 earthquake in 2011
In summary, this ms is worthwhile of publication provided that the aforementioned points will
be appropriately addressed.

I have also attached the references as shown in the paper

Regards

1.Varotsos, P. and Alexopoulos, K., 1984. Physical properties of the variations of the
electric field of the earth preceding earthquakes, I. Tecronophysics, 110: 73-98.
The electric field variations of the earth that occur before earthquakes have been studied
in a network of eighteen stations in Greece. These precursor seismic electric signals
(SES) occur 6-115 h before the earthquake (EQ) and have a duration of 1 min to 1 i h.
The duration and the lead-time in contrast to other precursors, do not depend on EQmagnitude (M). These signals appear as a transient change of the potential difference
measured between two electrodes (up to a few millivolts for electrodes at a distance of
about L = 50 m) depending on M, the epicentral distance r and the local
inhomogeneities. The components of electric field are measured in two perpendicular
directions (E-W and N-S). The totality of experiments showed that the interesting

quantity of each SES is the maximum value AFof the potential change. The SES of an
impending EQ appears simultaneously at a number of stations without being accompanied
by any significant change in the magnetic field. The following rules have been
established: (1) Seismic electric signals recorded on a single line (e.g. E-W) of a given
station and emitted from various seismic regions have AI-values that decrease with the
epicentral distance according to a l/r-law (for r > 50 km).
(2) For a given line of a given station the SES emitted from a given seismic region (r
= const.) have AV-values that increase with the magnitude; to a good approximation log
AV versus M gives a straight line with a slope between 0.3 and 0.4. If for the same
station and line another seismic region is considered, the straight line is parallel to the
previous one but shifted by a constant amount that depends purely on the ratio of the
epicentral distances. Therefore, if the quantity log(AV.r) for earthquakes emitted from
various seismic regions is plotted versus M, a unique linear relation for each station
appears with the same slope. (3) The simultaneous AV-values of a given EQ recorded at
various stations do not follow a l/r dependence. The value AV/L of the electric field in
each direction, divided by a suitable factor-an empirically determined effective resistivitygives a quantity characteristic of the variation of the component of the current density in
the earth which can be designated as the intensity of the signal in this direction. By
combining the values of the two directions the total intensity J of the SES results. This
quantity is found to attenuate with the distances of the stations according to a l/r-law so
that log( J. r) is an unique linear function of M for all stations and seismic regions.

2. Tectonophysics 110, 99-125, 1984

abstract

As reported in the preceding paper, a transient change of the electric field of the earth (seismic
electric signal), hereafter called SES, appears many hours before an earthquake (EQ). By
measuring this change in a given direction and dividing it with a suitable relative effective
resistivity one obtains a quantity that reflects the current density in this direction. Measurements
in two directions (E-W and N-S) give the relative signal intensity Jrel at the station under
consideration. By measuring Jrel at a number of stations and considering that it attenuates
according to a 1/r-law, the epicenter can be determined with an accuracy usually around 100 km.
Once the epicenter has been determined, the product Jrel r can be evaluated so that the
magnitude M can be estimated by resorting to an empirical log(Jrel r) versus M plot. The
uncertainty of M is around 0.5 units. Following Sobolev (1975) and for the statistics to be
beyond any doubt, predictions were officially documented before the EQ-occurrence. For 23
earthquakes with a magnitude equal or greater than Ms = 5.0 two events were missed.

The present method is compared to other electrical methods used in China, Japan and Soviet
Union. A number of problems concerning the origin of the effect, its directivity and the
attenuation with distance remain open for further studies.
3. P. Varotsos, K. Alexopoulos and M. Lazaridou, Latest aspects of earthquake prediction
in Greece based on Seismic Electric Signals II, Tectonophysics 224, 1-37 1993.
The latest aspects of the physical properties of seismic electric signals (SES) that are used for
earthquake prediction in Greece are described. The procedure currently followed for the selection
of a site appropriate for the collection of SES and for the electric dipole configuration of such a
station are reviewed. The process of constructing a map indicating the seismic areas for which
such a station is sensitive is also described. A review of other electrical precursors observed in
Greece is given, along with a summary of the newest theoretical models of the generation of
SES. The compatibility of these models with the existing data on SES is discussed. Furthermore,
a number of unsolved problems are listed, along with suggestions for future experimentation.
4.Varotsos, P. A., et al. "Natural-time analysis of critical phenomena: The case of
seismicity." EPL (Europhysics Letters) 92.2 (2010): 29002.
We first investigate in natural time the numerical simulations of a simple deterministic selforganized critical system introduced to describe avalanches in stick-slip phenomena. It is onedimensional and belongs to the same universality class as the train model for earthquakes
introduced by Burridge and Knopoff. We show that the variance 1= 2 2 of natural time ,
becomes approximately equal to 0.070 when the system approaches the critical state. Next, we
analyze in natural time the small earthquakes subsequent to the low-frequency magnetic-field
precursor observed near the epicenter of the Ms7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. We find that
almost five days before the mainshock, the condition 10.070 was reached.

5.Varotsos, P., Sarlis, N. V., Skordas, E. S., Uyeda, S., & Kamogawa, M. (2011). Natural
time analysis of critical phenomena.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
108(28), 11361-11364.
A quantity exists by which one can identify the approach of a dynamical system to the state of
criticality, which is hard to identify otherwise. This quantity is the variance
of
natural time , where
and pk is the normalized energy released during the kth
event of which the natural time is defined as k = k/N and N stands for the total number of events.
Then we show that 1 becomes equal to 0.070 at the critical state for a variety of dynamical
systems. This holds for criticality models such as 2D Ising and the BakTangWiesenfeld
sandpile, which is the standard example of self-organized criticality. This condition of 1 = 0.070
holds for experimental results of critical phenomena such as growth of rice piles, seismic electric
signals, and the subsequent seismicity before the associated main shock.

6. and 7. Calculation of the formation entropy of vacancies due to anharmonic effects,

Physical Review B 15, 4111-4114
The free energy due to the local dilatation created by a vacancy has been calculated from
macroscopic parameters for rare-gas solids, alkali halides with NaCl structure, and metals. From
its dependence on temperature the corresponding entropy of formation has been obtained. For
each of the three categories the resulting values are, respectively, in the region 2-3, 10, 1-2 (in k
units) which is the region of the published experimental values. This shows that anharmonicity
(i.e., the thermal variation of the bulk modulus) gives a very important contribution to the total
entropy of formation.

N.V. Sarlis, E.S. Skordas, M.S. Lazaridou, and P.A. Varotsos, Investigation of the
seismicity after the initiation of a Seismic Electric Signal activity until the main shock,
Proceedings of the Japan Academy, Ser. , 84, 331-343, 2008.
The behavior of seismicity in the area candidate to suffer a main shock is investigated after the
observation of the Seismic Electric Signal activity until the impending main shock. This is based
on the view that the occurrence of earthquakes is a critical phenomenon to which statistical
dynamics may be applied. In the present work, analysing the time series of small earthquakes,
the concept of natural time was used and the results revealed that the approach to criticality
itself can be manifested by the probability density function (PDF) of 1 calculated over an
appropriate statistical ensemble. Here, 1 is the variance 1(= 2 2) resulting from the power
spectrum of a function defined as ()=k=1Npkexp(ik), where pk is the normalized energy
of the k-th small earthquake and the natural frequency. This PDF exhibits a maximum at 1
0.070 a few days before the main shock. Examples are presented, referring to the magnitude
67 class earthquakes that occurred in Greece.
9.P. A. Varotsos, N. V. Sarlis, E. S. Skordas, and M. S. Lazaridou, Seismic Electric Signals:
An additional fact showing their physical interconnection with seismicity Tectonophysics,
Vol. 589 (2013) 116125.
Natural time analysis reveals novel dynamical features hidden behind time series in complex
systems. By applying it to the time series of earthquakes, we find that the order parameter of
seismicity exhibits a unique change approximately at the date(s) at which Seismic Electric
Signals (SES) activities have been reported to initiate. In particular, we show that the fluctuations
of the order parameter of seismicity in Japan exhibits a clearly detectable minimum
approximately at the time of the initiation of the SES activity observed by Uyeda and coworkers
almost two months before the onset of the volcanic-seismic swarm activity in 2000 in the Izu
Island region, Japan. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that, well before the
occurrence of major earthquakes, anomalous changes are found to appear almost simultaneously
in two independent datasets of different geophysical observables (geoelectrical measurements,
seismicity). In addition, we show that these two phenomena are also linked closely in space.

10. P.A. Varotsos, N.V. Sarlis, and E.S. Skordas, Long-range correlations in the electric
signals that precede rupture, Phys. Rev. E, 66, 011902 (7), 2002
ABSTRACT The correlations within the time series of the seismic electric signal (SES)
activities have been studied in a previous paper [P. Varotsos, N. Sarlis, and E. Skordas, Phys.
Rev. E 66, 011902 (2002)]. Here, we analyze the time series of successive high- and low-level
states' durations. The existence of correlation between the states is investigated by means of
Hurst and detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). The multifractal DFA (MF-DFA) is also
employed. The results point to a stronger correlation, and hence longer memory, in the series of
the high-level states. Furthermore, an analysis in the "natural" time domain reveals that certain
power spectrum characteristics seem to distinguish SES activities from "artificial" (man-made)
electric noises. More precisely, for natural frequencies 0<phi<0.5, the curves of the SES
activities and artificial noises lie above and below, respectively, that of the "uniform" distribution
(UD). A classification of these two types of electric signals (SES activities, artificial noises),
cannot be achieved on the basis of the values of the power-law exponents alone, if the Hurst
analysis, DFA, and MF-DFA are applied to the original time series. The latter two methods,
however, seem to allow a distinction between the SES activities and artificial noises when
treating them (not in conventional the time frame, but) in the natural time domain. To further test
the techniques, a time series produced by another system was examined. We chose a signal of ion
current fluctuations in membrane channels (ICFMCs). The following conclusions, among others,
have been obtained: First, the power spectrum analysis in the natural time domain shows that the
ICFMC curve almost coincides (in the range 0<phi<0.5) with that of the UD, and hence ICFMC
lies just in the boundary between the SES activities and artificial noises. Second, MF-DFA
indicates monofractality for the ICFMCs with a generalized Hurst exponent h=0.84+/-0.03 in the
range 7-70 ms.
11. P.A. Varotsos, N.V. Sarlis, and E.S. Skordas, Attempt to distinguish electric signals of a
dichotomous nature
Three types of electric signals were analyzed: Ion current fluctuations in membrane
channels (ICFMC), Seismic electric signals activities (SES), and artificial noises
(AN). The wavelet transform, when applied to the conventional time domain, does
not allow a classification of these signals, but does so in the natural time domain.
A classification also becomes possible, if we study q-q versus q, where
stands for the natural time. For q values approximately between 1 and 2 the
signals are classified and ICFMC lies between the other two types. For q=1, the
entropy Sln-ln of ICFMC almost equals that of a uniform
distribution, while the AN and SES have larger and smaller S values, respectively.
The recent [P. Varotsos, N. Sarlis, and E. Skordas, Phys. Rev. E 67, 021109 (2003)]
finding that, in short time scales, both SES and AN (which are shown to be nonMarkovian) result in comparable detrended fluctuation analysis exponents

(1.0,1.5) is revisited. Even a Markovian dichotomous time series, in short time

scales, leads to similar exponents.

12.Nicholas V. Sarlis, Efthimios S. Skordas, Panayiotis A. Varotsos, Toshiyasu Nagao, Masashi

Kamogawa,Haruo Tanaka, and Seiya Uyeda. Minimum of the order parameter fluctuations of
seismicity before major earthquakes
It has been shown that some dynamic features hidden in the time series of complex systems can
be uncovered if we analyze them in a time domain called natural time . The order parameter of
seismicity introduced in this time domain is the variance of weighted for normalized energy of
each earthquake. Here, we analyze the Japan seismic catalog in natural time from January 1,
1984 to March 11, 2011, the day of the M9 Tohoku earthquake, by considering a sliding natural
time window of fixed length comprised of the number of events that would occur in a few
months. We find that the fluctuations of the order parameter of seismicity exhibit distinct minima
a few months before all of the shallow earthquakes of magnitude 7.6 or larger that occurred
during this 27-y period in the Japanese area. Among the minima, the minimum before the M9
Tohoku earthquake was the deepest. It appears that there are two kinds of minima, namely
precursory and nonprecursory, to large earthquakes.