A Reduced Madelung-Type Model for Seismic Activation: Localization Dynamics and Baseline-Aware Validation
8 affiliations
- 1Department of Geography, Faculty of Geography and Geology, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași, 700505 Iași, Romania
- 2National Institute of Research and Development for Technical Physics, IFT Iași, 700050 Iași, Romania
- 3Clinical Emergency Hospital Prof. Dr. Nicolae Oblu Iași, 700309 Iași, Romania
- 4Faculty of Physics, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, 700506 Iași, Romania
- 5Department of Environmental Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Agritourism, Faculty of Engineering, Vasile Alecsandri University of Bacău, 600115 Bacău, Romania
- 6National Meteorological Administration, Bacău Regional Forecast Center, 600234 Bacău, Romania
- 7Department of Biophysics and Medical Physics, Faculty of Medicine, Grigore T. Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy Iasi, 700115 Iași, Romania
- 8Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Dental Medicine, Grigore T. Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy Iasi, 700115 Iași, Romania
Abstract
We developed a one-dimensional Madelung-type model to test whether seismic activation dynamics improve agreement with future earthquake distributions beyond empirical baselines. The model couples activation density, activation-flow velocity, effective loading, structural heterogeneity, and a curvature-sensitive potential. Synthetic simulations examined localization, while temporally separated United States Geological Survey (USGS) Japan–western Pacific catalog tests compared the model with persistence and historical relative intensity. Principal component analysis (PCA) preprocessing excluded holdout data, and weak-evolution parameters were calibrated independently on 2022 data. On the July–December 2023 complete-catalog holdout, weak evolution underperformed persistence on most metrics, including Pearson correlation (0.4156 versus 0.4837); paired moving-block bootstrap intervals for correlation and cosine differences included zero. In January–June 2023, several continuous metrics improved over persistence, but operating-point results remained mixed. Declustering favored weak evolution over persistence on most metrics, while relative intensity retained higher Pearson and Spearman correlations. Removing the curvature term produced stronger concentration, indicating a regularizing rather than uniquely focusing role. Grid refinement revealed resolution sensitivity in strong evolution. These results support a mechanistic and numerical proof of concept whose empirical performance depends on catalog treatment, forecast window, and metric; they do not establish robust earthquake forecast superiority.
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BibTeX
@article{nica2026reduced,
title = {{A Reduced Madelung-Type Model for Seismic Activation: Localization Dynamics and Baseline-Aware Validation}},
author = {Dragos Nica and Călin Gheorghe Buzea and Alina Stefania Dobos and Dragos Ioan Rusu and Adrian Timofte and Diana-Corina Bostan and Vlad Ghizdovat and Maricel Agop and Decebal Vasincu},
journal = {Fractal and Fractional},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3390/fractalfract10100718},
url = {https://www.mdpi.com/2504-3110/10/10/718},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - A Reduced Madelung-Type Model for Seismic Activation: Localization Dynamics and Baseline-Aware Validation
AU - Dragos Nica
AU - Călin Gheorghe Buzea
AU - Alina Stefania Dobos
AU - Dragos Ioan Rusu
AU - Adrian Timofte
AU - Diana-Corina Bostan
AU - Vlad Ghizdovat
AU - Maricel Agop
AU - Decebal Vasincu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/13
JO - Fractal and Fractional
DO - 10.3390/fractalfract10100718
UR - https://www.mdpi.com/2504-3110/10/10/718
AB - We developed a one-dimensional Madelung-type model to test whether seismic activation dynamics improve agreement with future earthquake distributions beyond empirical baselines. The model couples activation density, activation-flow velocity, effective loading, structural heterogeneity, and a curvature-sensitive potential. Synthetic simulations examined localization, while temporally separated United States Geological Survey (USGS) Japan–western Pacific catalog tests compared the model with persistence and historical relative intensity. Principal component analysis (PCA) preprocessing excluded holdout data, and weak-evolution parameters were calibrated independently on 2022 data. On the July–December 2023 complete-catalog holdout, weak evolution underperformed persistence on most metrics, including Pearson correlation (0.4156 versus 0.4837); paired moving-block bootstrap intervals for correlation and cosine differences included zero. In January–June 2023, several continuous metrics improved over persistence, but operating-point results remained mixed. Declustering favored weak evolution over persistence on most metrics, while relative intensity retained higher Pearson and Spearman correlations. Removing the curvature term produced stronger concentration, indicating a regularizing rather than uniquely focusing role. Grid refinement revealed resolution sensitivity in strong evolution. These results support a mechanistic and numerical proof of concept whose empirical performance depends on catalog treatment, forecast window, and metric; they do not establish robust earthquake forecast superiority.
SN - 2504-3110
ER -