Fig. 5

Change in the recurrence interval due to viscoelastic relaxation. a Plot of the recurrence interval of earthquakes \(t_{\text{rec}}\) as a function of \(t_{c} /t_{\text{load}}\) with \(R_{c}^{\text{EL}} /R = 0.35\). A solid line represents the best-fit model to the simulation results which diverges at \(\widetilde{t}_{\text{cr}}\). b A log–log plot of a, showing a power law decay with a slope of \(- 1\)