Depth bands gave no clear late excess contrast around 82 deep M6.5 to below 8 earthquakes in 2001-2024

We tested whether late M5.5+ event excess is larger near the depth of a deep earthquake than far from it. We used a fixed global ComCat snapshot and 82 centers with depth greater than 300 km and M6.5 to below 8 in 2001-2024. Centers had no equal or larger event within 200 km and 365 days on either side. At horizontal distance up to 200 km, days 7-30 gave 2 before and 12 after counts within 50 km of the center depth. Depth differences above 150 km gave 0 before and 7 after counts. The near-minus-far excess was 0.0366 events per center, with a conditional 95% three-year block interval of -0.1081 to 0.1482. All seven parameter settings gave contrast intervals that included zero. The data do not resolve a larger near-depth excess. They do not show equal band rates or a shallow crustal response. Sparse counts, regional dependence, selection, location errors and mixed magnitude types limit inference. Code, aggregate counts, bootstrap weights, independent checks and exact source retrieval instructions are included. External catalog records are excluded.

deep earthquakes · depth bands · late event excess · ComCat · null result · spatial localization