Earthquakes Statistics Get Help from Forest-fire Models

Natural disasters like forest fires and earthquakes have more than just havoc-reeking, destructive natures in common, according to scientist Eduardo Jagla of the National Atomic Energy Commission in Argentina. In a paper to appear in the APS journal, Physical Review Letters, Jagla found that a statistical model describing the behavior of forest fires could be used to characterize the decay rate of earthquakes.The number of earthquakes that can occur in a given region over a period of time follow...