Spatial, Temporal, and Dynamic Behavior of Different Entropies in Seismic Activity: The February 2023 Earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria

Türkiye and Syria were hit by two powerful earthquakes on 6 February 2023. A 7.5 magnitude earthquake, soon followed by a second 7.4 magnitude seism, devastated the area. The present study compares three different entropies using data from 2017 to 2023 (55,823 events) in this region and is the first study to use Shannon entropy, Tsallis entropy, and mutability for analyzing the seismic activity in this region. A couple of years before these large earthquakes, both Shannon entropy and mutability show an overall decrease, potentially indicating upcoming large events; however, the detailed results on mutability offer an advantage, as discussed in this paper. A simultaneous overall increase in Tsallis entropy may also point to some kind of warning of the possible occurrence of large events in the area a couple of years later. The three entropies show how they are presently slowly recovering to previous levels in the affected areas. Longer-term studies combining complementary entropies could help to determine regional seismic risk.