Forecasting future earthquakes with deep neural networks: application to California

SUMMARY We use the spatial map of the logarithm of past estimated released earthquake energies as input of fully convolutional networks (FCN) to forecast future earthquakes. This model is applied to California and compared with an elaborated version of the epidemic type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model. Our long-term earthquake forecast simulations show that the FCN model is close to the ETAS model in forecasting earthquakes with $M \ge 3.0,\,\,4.0,\,\,{\rm{and\,\,}}5.0$ according to the Molchan diagram. Moreover, training and implementing the FCN model is 2000–4000 times faster than calibrating the ETAS model and generating its probabilistic forecasts. The FCN model is straightforward in terms of its neural network structure and feature engineering. It does not require extensive knowledge of statistical seismology or the analysis of earthquake catalogue completeness. Using the earthquake catalogue with $M \ge 0$ as FCN input can enhance the model's performance in some time–magnitude forecasting windows.