Characteristic changes of scale invariance of seismicity prior to large earthquakes: A constructive review

Recently, research on the characteristic changes of scale invariance of seismicity before large earthquakes has received considerable attention. However, in some circumstances, it is not easy to obtain these characteristic changes because the features of seismicity in different regions are various. In this paper, we firstly introduced some important research developments of the characteristic changes of scale invariance of seismicity before large earthquakes, which are of particular importance to the researchers in earthquake forecasting and seismic activity. We secondly discussed the strengths and weaknesses of different scale invariance methods such as the local scaling property, the multifractal spectrum, the Hurst exponent analysis and the correlation dimension. We finally came up with a constructive suggestion for the research strategy in this topic. Our suggestion is that when people try to obtain the precursory information before large earthquakes or to study the fractal property of seismicity by means of the above scale invariance methods, the strengths and weaknesses of these methods have to be taken into consideration for the purpose of increasing research efficiency. If they do not consider the strengths and weaknesses of these methods, the efficiency of their research might decrease greatly.