自然界的大部分現象並不是有序、穩定、平衡與確定的，而是表現出無序、不穩定、非平衡與隨機的狀態。近年來在自然科學的許多領域中，處理與渾沌和自組織臨界性有關的集體現象之新理論、新方法一再獲得了相當大的成功。這些新理論、新方法很值得給予吾人對地震發生的時空過程重新思考的機會。藉由本三年期之研究計畫將非線性動力學的觀念與方法，推廣應用到地震活動度之時空分析研究上，在第一年度中，我們希望能尋找並建構出系統的「特徵函數」及其「相空間」。在第二年度裡，我們預期可以從複雜的地震活動中，分析出諸如碎形維度、赫斯特指數、李亞普諾夫指數等相關物理量，從而理解地震過程背後之動力行為，並對影響這些過程的因子著手開始討論與分析，乃進而在第三年能進一步地思考預測地震動力系統之可能性。 Most phenomena in the Nature are not ordered, stable, in equilibratory or deterministic, but demonstrate a state that is unordered, unstable, inequilibratory and random. In recent years, many new theories and techniques associated with the Chaos, Self-organizing Criticality and Cooperative Behavior etc., constantly obtain great achievements in a lot of fields of natural sciences. Those new theories and methods offer the scientists a chance to re-think the course of the spatiotemporal process of earthquakes. By means of this three-year project, we apply the idea and method of Nonlinear Dynamics to the study of the spatiotemporal process of seismicity. In the first year, we would like to figure out and construct the 「characteristic function」 and its associated 「phase space」 for the earthquake dynamics. Then, in the second year, we will try to calculate some relevant physical quantities, such as the fractal dimension, the Hurst and Lyapunov exponents, based on the re-constructed time series for the earthquake fault system. These quantities help us understanding the underlying dynamical process of earthquakes. In the final third year, we are trying to discuss and analyze the factors which influence the course of earthquake dynamics. We will furthermore explore the possibility of predicting the dynamical system of earthquakes. 研究期間：9608 ~ 9707
