Relocating Javakheti Highland seismicity using HypoDD
Abstract
The continental collision zone between the Arabian and Eurasian plates has led to formation of a diffuse zone of deformation that extends from the Bitlis suture to the Greater Caucasus, represented mainly by fold and thrust belts systems typical of most continental collision zones. The continued Arabian- Eurasia convergence has affected the Anatolian plateau and the Lesser and Greater Caucasus in distinctly different fashions. At the edge of the Lesser Caucasus we have the Javakheti plateau, an extremely active seismic zone. Javakheti is thought to be a volcanic highland. There are few studies to understand tectonic nature of the two almost parallel volcanic ridges striking from Adjara-Trialeti thrust belt system to the south, towards Armenian suture zone. Seismic network resolution in the Caucasus countries has been improved during past several years. National networks deployed new seismic stations and established good collaboration that have led to exchanging online waveform data. Local seismic network has been installed in Javakheti area by different scientific groups. Recently the seismic network of the region improved tremendously within the framework of the US-Georgian-Azeri-Armenian-Russian joint regional project . In this study we have combined all the existed dataset to improve locations of the earthquakes and delineate active tectonic structures of the area.
We have relocated 12,000 earthquakes with high precision using the HypoDD algorithm. The obtained data set of well-located hypocenters allowed us to define some previously unknown or only poorly-defined, tectonic units of the region. The accuracy of absolute hypocenter locations is controlled by several factors, including the network geometry, available phases and arrival-time reading accuracy. The nature of the seismicity indicates a possible volcanic origin of the earthquake clusters in the Javkheti highland. More specifically we observe three distinct and apparently non-fault related seismic zones. To the north we observe clear fault related seismicity at the edge of the Greater Caucasus.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.S51D0419B
- Keywords:
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- 7230 Seismicity and tectonics;
- SEISMOLOGY;
- 7260 Theory;
- SEISMOLOGY;
- 8010 Fractures and faults;
- STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY