A pragmatic approach to adjusting early instrumental local magnitudes for seismic hazard assessments in Australia

Abstract

Prior to the development of Australian-specific magnitude formulae, the 1935 magnitude correction factors by Charles Richter—originally developed for southern California—were almost exclusively used to calculate earthquake magnitudes throughout Australia prior to the 1990s. Due to the difference in ground-motion attenuation between southern California and much of the Australian continent, many earthquake magnitudes from the early instrumental era are likely to have been overestimated in the Australian earthquake catalogue. A method is developed that adjusts local magnitudes (ML) using the difference between the original (inappropriate) magnitude formulae (or look-up tables) and the Australian-specific formulae at a distance determined by the nearest recording station likely to have recorded the earthquake. Nationally, these adjustments have reduced the number of earthquakes of ML ≥ 4.5 in the early instrumental catalogue by approximately 25% since 1900, while the number of ML ≥ 5.0 earthquakes has reduced by approximately 32% over the same time period. The reduction in the number of moderate-to-large-magnitude earthquakes over the instrumental period yields long-term earthquake rates that are more consistent with present-day rates, since the development of Australian-specific magnitude formulae (approximately 1990). The adjustment of early instrumental magnitudes to obtain consistently derived earthquake catalogue is important for seismic hazard assessments.