Abstract

Seismic instruments placed outside of spatially extensive hazard zones can be used to rapidly sense a range of mass movements. However, it remains challenging to automatically detect specific events of interest. Benford's law, which states that first non-zero-digit of given datasets follow a specific probability distribution, can provide a computationally cheap approach to identifying anomalies in large datasets and potentially be used for event detection. Here, we select raw seismic signals to derive the first-digit distribution. The seismic signals generated by debris flows, landslides, lahars, and glacier-lake-outburst floods follow Benford's law, while those generated by ambient noise, rockfalls, and bedload transports do not. Focusing on debris flows, our Benford's-law-based detector is comparable to an existing random forest method for the Illgraben, Switzerland, but requires only single station data and three non-dimensional parameters. We suggest this computationally cheap, novel technique offers an alternative for event recognition and potentially for real-time warnings.