ABSTRACT

We report the activity of earthquakes and temporal variation in selected areas. This study aims to
determine the activity of earthquakes and temporal variations in North Maluku based on the value of b, a
and a return period, in North Maluku. The data used in this study is the data of the earthquake at a depth
of 2-60 km obtained from repogempa and BMKG (Meteorology and Geophysics) in the period 1975-
2015. The calculation of the value parameter b, the value of a, and a return period of earthquakes is done
with maximum likelihood method in ZMAP software with spatial and temporal analysis. The calculation
result obtained by the b value of about 0.3-1.2, a value is 2.5-7.5, while the return period of earthquakes
with a magnitude of 7.0 in the range of 10-30 years. From the results obtained it can be concluded that the
selected areas have a high earthquake activeness and also likely occurrence of an earthquake with a
magnitude great in the future. On the pattern of temporal variation (variation of b with respect to time)
showed that the value of b decreased when an earthquake with a magnitude large.

Keywords : b value, the value of a, the return period, temporal variations.