The 2012 August 11 Ahar earthquakes: consequences for tectonics and earthquake hazard in the Turkish-Iranian Plateau

Copley, Alex and Faridi, Mohammad and Ghorashi, Manoucher and Hollingsworth, James and Jackson, James and Nazari, Hamid and Oveisi, Behnam and Talebian, Morteza (2013) The 2012 August 11 Ahar earthquakes: consequences for tectonics and earthquake hazard in the Turkish-Iranian Plateau. Geophysical Journal International. ggt379. ISSN ISSN: 0956-540X, ESSN: 1365-246X DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggt379

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Abstract

We have examined the faulting in the 2012 August 11 Mw 6.4 and 6.3 Ahar (NW Iran) earthquakes using a combination of field mapping, remote-sensing observations of tectonic geomorphology, the cross-correlation of optical satellite images and the inversion of seismic waveforms. The first event was close to pure strike-slip, and the second was an oblique combination of thrust and strike-slip motion. Mapped surface ruptures indicate at least one of these events accommodated mostly right-lateral strike-slip motion on an ∼E–W striking plane. The occurrence of these earthquakes highlights the spatially distributed deformation in NW Iran, which has implications for both hazard assessment (the Ahar events killed over 300 people and injured over 3000), and also tectonic models of the region. Furthermore, these earthquakes demonstrate that the tectonics of the Ahar area is characterized by strike-slip faulting and a component of shortening, and not the previously suggested extension.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Authors 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal Astronomical Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	2013AREP; IA66; OA
Subjects:	02 - Geodynamics, Geophysics and Tectonics
Divisions:	02 - Geodynamics, Geophysics and Tectonics
Journal or Publication Title:	Geophysical Journal International
Page Range:	ggt379
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggt379
Depositing User:	Sarah Humbert
Date Deposited:	08 Nov 2013 18:23
Last Modified:	20 Mar 2014 22:02
URI:	http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/id/eprint/2905

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