The occurrence of earthquakes is characterized by great
spatio-temporal variability arising from complex interaction between
earthquakes. In recent years significant progress has been made with
respect to the understanding of scaling laws, spatiotemporal
correlations, and the emergence of seismicity patterns. A new
generation of physical models as well as evolving developments in the
field of statistical seismology have provided insights which are of
direct importance for the assessment of the time-dependent seismic
hazard.

This session focuses on both emerging systematic methods which can improve our
state of understanding of the physical processes responsible for the
distribution of earthquakes in space and time, and new models,
technologies, and tools which quantify both the seismotectonic process
and its evolution. Particular emphasis will be placed on
(i) triggering mechanism (stress transfer, fluids, ...);
(ii) physical and statistical models of earthquake occurrence;
(iii) time-dependence of earthquake statistics;
(iv) quantitative testing of hypothetical models; and
(v) implications for time-dependent hazard assessment and
probabilistic earthquake forecasts;
(vi) statistical estimation of seismic
hazard parameters from data.