SMALL EARTHQUAKES TO UNDERSTAND AND PREDICT LARGER ONES

Small earthquakes are not destructive but can be very helpful. This HDR thesis describes threw different research studies how small earthquakes can be used for (1) understanding seismic source of larger ones by an inversion using empirical Green's functions (2) imaging active faults using location and relative relocation methods (3) predict the ground motions generated by major earthquake with a new method described in details. Earthquakes of different magnitude (3 to 8) and from different regions of the world are studied (Mexico, French Indies, Italy, Greece, France).