https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2012-01569-3
Review
Black swans, power laws, and dragon-kings: Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, wildfires, floods, and SOC models
1 Department of Physics, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
2 Department of Geology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
3 Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87185, USA
4 Department of Geography, Kings College London, London WC2R2LS, UK
Received:
23
November
2011
Revised:
9
March
2012
Published online:
1
May
2012
Extreme events that change global society have been characterized as black swans. The frequency-size distributions of many natural phenomena are often well approximated by power-law (fractal) distributions. An important question is whether the probability of extreme events can be estimated by extrapolating the power-law distributions. Events that exceed these extrapolations have been characterized as dragon-kings. In this paper we consider extreme events for earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildfires, landslides and floods. We also consider the extreme event behavior of three models that exhibit self-organized criticality (SOC): the slider-block, forest-fire, and sand-pile models. Since extrapolations using power-laws are widely used in probabilistic hazard assessment, the occurrence of dragon-king events have important practical implications.
© EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag, 2012
