We introduce a new method based on the analysis of the
topographical alignments and used to delineate the structural
boundaries of the nodes, which permits the definition of
relatively narrow earthquake-prone areas by the pattern recognition
approach. The structurally bounded nodes capable of
earthquakes with M >= 6.0, identified with pattern recognition, in
fact, cover a significantly smaller area of the study region as
compared with that defined by Gorshkov et al. (2004) who used
conventional circles. The proposed method thus improves the
precision in the location of potential large earthquakes.
