Spatiotemporal ETAS model with a renewal main-shock arrival process

Abstract: This article proposes a spatiotemporal point process model that enhances the classical Epidemic-Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) model by incorporating a renewal main-shock arrival process, which we term the renewal ETAS (RETAS) model. This modification is similar in spirit to the renewal Hawkes (RHawkes) process but the conditional intensity process supports a spatial domain. It empowers the main-shock intensity with the capability to reset upon the arrival of main-shocks and therefore allows for heavier clustering of earthquakes than the spatiotemporal ETAS model introduced by Ogata (1998). We introduce a likelihood evaluation algorithm for parameter estimation and provide a novel procedure to evaluated the fitted model's goodness-of-fit based on a sequential application of the Rosenblatt transformation. A simulation algorithm for the RETAS model is developed and applied to validate the numerical performance of the likelihood evaluation algorithm and goodness of fit test procedure. We illustrate the proposed model and procedures on various earthquake catalogs around the world each with distinctly different seismic activity. These catalogs will demonstrate that the RETAS model affords additional flexibility in comparison to the classical spatiotemporal ETAS model and has the potential for superior modeling and forecasting of seismicity.