Rundle, J. B.,Holliday, J. R.,Graves, W. R.,Turcotte, D. L.,Tiampo, K. F.,Klein, W.
Many driven threshold systems display a spectrum of avalanche event sizes, often characterized by power-law scaling. An important problem is to compute probabilities of the largest events ("Black Swans"). We develop a data-driven approach to the problem by transforming to the event index frame, and relating this to Shannon information. For earthquakes, we find the 12-month probability for magnitude m > 6 earthquakes in California increases from about 30% after the last event, to 40%-50% prior to the next one.