Global correlations of the Earth's magnetic field and their connection with strong earthquakes

Abstract

We consider 3-component records of the magnetic field strength with a time step of 1 minute at 153 stations of the INTERMAGNET network for 31 years, 1991–2021. Data analysis is based on the calculation of pairwise correlation coefficients between wavelet coefficients in successive time windows 1 day long (1440 minute counts). To describe the state of the magnetic field, the maxima of the average values of all pairwise correlation coefficients between stations were chosen, calculated over all detail levels of the wavelet decomposition and over all components of the magnetic field strength vector. The daily time series of such maxima is called wavelet correlation. The division of the network stations into 7 clusters is considered, and a time series of wavelet correlations is calculated for each cluster. In a sliding time window with a length of 365 days, correlation measures of synchronization of wavelet correlations from different clusters are calculated, which are compared with the strongest earthquakes with a magnitude of at least 8.5. For the global time series of wavelet correlations, the method of influence matrices is used to study the relationship between the maximum correlation responses to a change in the length of the day and a sequence of earthquakes with a magnitude of at least 7. As a result of the analysis, precursor effects are identified, and the important role of the Maule earthquake in Chile on February 27, 20210 in the behavior of the response of magnetic field for the preparation of strong seismic events is shown.