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This paper continues the series of publications by the authors on the recognition of areas prone to the strongest, strong, and significant earthquakes using the FCAZ system-analytical method. The areas prone to earthquakes with M ≥ 5.5 in the eastern sector of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation were recognized. It is shown that certain potential high seismicity zones are well confined to the boundaries of the Eurasian, North American, and Okhotsk tectonic plates. In addition, according to the results of the FCAZ recognition, some areas located at a sufficient distance from the main tectonic structures of the studied region were also recognized as highly seismic. The results of the study, among other factors, justify the use of the assessment of the completeness magnitude in the catalog for choosing the set of recognition objects for the FCAZ method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Typically, strong earthquakes do not occur over the entire territory of the seismically active region. Recognition of areas where they may occur is a critical step in seismic hazard assessment studies. For half a century, the Earthquake-Prone Areas (EPA) approach, developed by the famous Soviet academicians I.M. Gelfand and V.I. Keilis-Borok, was used to recognize areas prone to strong earthquakes. For the modern development of ideas that form the basis of the EPA method, new mathematical methods of pattern recognition are proposed. They were developed by the authors to overcome the difficulties that arise today when using the EPA approach in its classic version. So, firstly, a scheme for the recognition of high seismicity disjunctive nodes and the vicinities of axis intersections of the morphostructural lineaments was created with only one high seismicity learning class. Secondly, the system-analytical method FCAZ (Formalized Clustering and Zoning) has been developed. It uses the epicenters of fairly weak earthquakes as recognition objects. This makes it possible to develop the recognition result of areas prone to strong earthquakes after the appearance of epicenters of new weak earthquakes and, thereby, to repeatedly correct the results over time. It is shown that the creation of the FCAZ method for the first time made it possible to consider the classical problem of earthquake-prone areas recognition from the point of view of advanced systems analysis. The new mathematical recognition methods proposed in the article have made it possible to successfully identify earthquake-prone areas on the continents of North and South America, Eurasia, and in the subduction zones of the Pacific Rim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]