C ≈ 0.85 scaling and the universal clustering structure of earthquake networks

Abstract. Earthquake network describes the complexity of seismicity both qualitatively and quantitatively. The procedure of constructing an earthquake network contains as a single parameter the size of the cells, into which a geographical region under consideration is divided. Then, the characteristics of the network depend on the cell size, in general. Here, the dependency of the clustering coefficient, C, of network on the cell size is studied. Remarkably, C of the earthquake networks constructed from the seismic data taken from California, Japan, and Iran well coincide for each value of the scaled dimensionless cell size. It is found that the networks in California and Japan are three-dimensional, whereas the one in Iran is rather two-dimensional. In addition, the values of C of all these three networks monotonically converge to C ≈ 0.85 as the scaled dimensionless cell size increases, highlighting a universal aspect of the concept of earthquake network.