Correlations and variability in electrical signals related to earthquake activity

Evaluating complex fluctuations in geoelectric time series is an important task not only for earthquake prediction but also for understanding complex processes related to earthquake preparation. Previous studies have reported alterations, such as the emergence of correlated dynamics in geoelectric potentials prior to an important earthquake (EQ). However, the presence of correlations and its relation with variability has not been widely explored. In this work we apply the detrended fluctuation analysis and the multiscale entropy methods to analyze the fluctuations of geoelectric time series monitored in two sites located in Mexico. We systematically calculate the correlation exponents and the sample entropy (S_E) of geoelectric time series. Important differences in the scaling exponents and entropy profiles for several time scales are observed. In particular, a complex behavior, characterized by a high entropy across several scales and crossover in the correlation exponents, is observed in the vicinity of an M = 7.4 EQ that occurred on Sept. 14, 1995. Moreover, we compare the changes in the entropy of the original data with their corresponding shuffled version to see whether correlations in the original data are related to variability.