Zipf-Mandelbrot Law for Time Intervals of Earthquakes

The statistical properties of the seismic time series data in southern California are studies. In particular, the calm time intervals, which are the time intervals between successive significant earthquakes above the fixed threshold value of magnitude, are analyzed. It is found that the system undergoes a series of transition between stationary states, whose cumulative waiting time distributions all obey the Zipf-Mandelbrot law, exhibiting a new scale free nature of earthquakes. Dependencies of the two parameters characterizing the Zipf-Mandelbrot distribution on the threshold are also discussed.