An artificial statistical method to estimate seismicity parameter from incomplete earthquake catalogs A case study in metropolitan Tehran, Iran

Uncertainties in earthquake catalogs, earthquake recurrence parameters, andin the variation of ground motion parameters are often considered in the evaluation ofseismic hazard analysis. the purpose of this study is to develop an articial statisticalprocedure based on bayes' formulation and weighted bootstrap sampling to estimateseismicity parameter (b-value of the gutenberg-richter law) from both historical andinstrumental data in a given region. the procedure allows for uncertainty in the periodof completeness, and assigns dierent weights to historical seismicity as compared toinstrumental seismicity. variation of seismicity within seismic sources is allowed with thisprocedure. this variation generalizes the condition of spatially homogeneous seismicitywithin seismic sources and permits an accurate representation of historical seismicity.as a case study, the earthquake catalog of the greater tehran, iran, is considered toestimate seismicity parameters as well as probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (psha)using the proposed procedure, and then the results are compared with those obtained froma conventional psha method. this comparison conrms the applicability of the procedureused in this study.