Geophysical research: article

Аnnotation: The algorithm and operation with the FastBEE software are described. It is designed to assess seismic hazard and medium-term forecast of strong earthquakes, by using the earthquake catalogs data that have a long-term observation period. The seismic situation is assessed on the basis of monitoring the spatio-temporal variations of seismic parameters which include: the parameter b (or b-value) of the Gutenberg-Richter law, the value of the released seismic energy lgE2/3 and the seismic activity of the observation region lgN. The software uses an original algorithm for determining the value of the minimum representative magnitude Mc, based on the use of the midpoint located on the frequency-magnitude distribution of earthquakes in the area of magnitudes M≥Mc. An algorithm for constructing time series of seismic parameters is described, which makes it possible to easily filter time series with a smoothing window of any length. The seismic hazard assessment in space is carried out according to the mapping of b-value parameter in area and depth. The size of the anomalously low b in the space makes it possible to estimate the location, depth, and maximum possible magnitude of a probable strong earthquake in the region. Based on the data of temporal variations of seismic parameters, it is possible to determine the least and the most probable time period for the occurrence of strong events with a magnitude exceeding the minimum predicted earthquake magnitude (MPE) in the observation area. The visualization tools and the provided interface of the software, allow the user to assess the quality of the earthquake catalogs and control the entire process of calculating the process of experimental data on the computer display.