Multifractal fluctuations in earthquake-related geoelectrical signals

Multifractal fluctuations in the time dynamics of geoelectrical data, recorded in a seismic area of southern Italy, have been analysed. We find that the multifractality of the signal depends mostly on the different long-range properties for small and large fluctuations. Furthermore, we quantitatively characterized the multifractality of the geoelectrical time series, on the basis of the characteristic parameters derived from the multifractal spectrum (maximum α 0 , asymmetry B and width W ) (Shimizu Y, Thurner S and Ehrenberger K 2002 Fractals 10 103). We then analysed the time evolution of the multifractal parameters and we found that the multifractal degree of the signal, revealed by the variation of the width of the multifractal spectrum, is enhanced in association with the occurrence of the largest seismic event. This study aims to suggest another approach to investigate the complex dynamics of geoelectrical signals.