Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Applied Radiation and Isotopes journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apradiso Descriptive analysis and earthquake prediction using boxplot interpretation of soil radon time series data Aleem Dad Khan Tareen a , Malik Sajjad Ahmed Nadeem b , Kimberlee Jane Kearfott c , Kamran Abbas d , Muhammad Asim Khawaja e , Muhammad Rafique a,∗ a Department of Physics University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarbad, 13100, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan b Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, 13100, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan c University of Michigan, Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, 48109-2104 d Department of Statistics, University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarbad, 13100, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan e Centre for Earthquake Studies National Centre for Physics, Islamabad, Pakistan HIGHLIGHTS • Correlation of radon anomalies with meteorological parameters and earth- quake occurrence is investigated. • Coefficient of variation indicate the consistency of the recorded values of radon in soil. • Boxplots show specific patterns in radon concentrations due to pre- earthquake seismic activities. • Study reveals the importance of mon- itoring soil radon in order to in- vestigate the possible earthquake pre- diction. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT Time series trend of 222 Rn and meteorological parameters. ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Radon anomalies Meteorological parameters Soil radon gas Boxplots ABSTRACT Correlation of radon anomalies with meteorological parameters and earthquake occurrence has been reported in many studies. This paper reports descriptive statistical analysis and boxplot contingent earthquake prediction based upon soil radon time series data. Data has been collected over a fault line, passing beneath the Muzaffarabad, for the period of one year. Soil radon gas (SRG) was measured using RTM 1688-2 radiometric instrument (made by SARAD GmbH). The range of radon in soil was found to be 14349 Bqm −3 , whereas the ranges of temperature, pressure and relative humidity were found as 38.50 C 0 , 29 mbar and 67% respectively. SRG data shows that time series follows normal distribution. Values of coefficient of variation (CV) indicate the consistency of the recorded values of radon in soil and metrological parameters. Variance inflation factor (VIF) and Durbin Watson test (d) indicate a moderate multicollinearity and autocorrelation between variables. The analysis of radon time series using boxplots and meteorological parameters show specific patterns in radon concentrations (outliers, variant IQRs, first quartile values, and median values) due to pre-earthquake under- ground seismic activities. On the basis of these patterns earthquake may be more early predicted without using complicated predictive systems. Boxplots also predicted that there is no significant pattern found in dispersion of meteorological factors measured in this study. To the best of our knowledge this is first ever attempt to predict earthquake using boxplot explanation. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.108861 Received 30 June 2019; Received in revised form 25 July 2019; Accepted 13 August 2019 ∗ Corresponding author. Department of Physics, University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, 13100, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. E-mail addresses: mrafique@gmail.com, mrafique@ajku.edu.pk (M. Rafique). Applied Radiation and Isotopes 154 (2019) 108861 Available online 22 August 2019 0969-8043/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T