Geophysics
Shahrokh Pourbeyranvand; Mohammad Tatar
Abstract
The Alborz, as one of the important seismotectonic provinces in Iran, has a great vulnerability from natural disasters, especially seismic risk point of view, because of the existence of Tehran megacity in its southern edge. The importance of this area has caused a relatively dense GPS network around ...
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The Alborz, as one of the important seismotectonic provinces in Iran, has a great vulnerability from natural disasters, especially seismic risk point of view, because of the existence of Tehran megacity in its southern edge. The importance of this area has caused a relatively dense GPS network around it. In this study, the earthquake focal mechanism data obtained from different resources was used for stress tensor inversion in the Central Alborz. On the other hand, interpolation of the GPS vectors in rectangular grids and differentiation in the center of each grid cell was used for the study of strain rate in this area. The results showed special variation in principal axes of stress and strain rate, and also the changes in areal and maximum shear strain rates in different parts of the Central Alborz, which shows the geodynamic complexity of the study area. Finally, the angular differences between the maximum horizontal stress and strain rate compressive axis directions were calculated in the location of the clusters of the earthquakes. These calculations showed that the extent of the strain partitioning in the middle parts of the mountain range, where strike-slip motions on Mosha and Firuzkuh faults are observed, has more significant effect on the current deformation processes in the Central Alborz. Meanwhile, in the Northern parts of the range, where dominantly sip slip motions on Khazar Thrust and North Alborz fault occurs, deformation partitioning plays a minor role in the region.
SH Pourbeyranvand; M Tatar
Abstract
Having knowledge of stress variations in the Zagros region, southwest Iran is necessary to study the deformation resulting from oblique collision between the Eurasian & the Arabian plates and to obtain insight into the complicated tectonics of the region. In this study, earthquakes focal mechanism ...
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Having knowledge of stress variations in the Zagros region, southwest Iran is necessary to study the deformation resulting from oblique collision between the Eurasian & the Arabian plates and to obtain insight into the complicated tectonics of the region. In this study, earthquakes focal mechanism data were used to collect information on the state of stress in 12 subdivisions of the data including teleseismic and local events in the Zagros region. The stress axis show noticeable variations in the Zagros region, especially around the Oman Line. The angular difference between the stress & strain axis increases from the southeast to the northwest of the ZagrosMountain. The deformation partitioning due to pre-existing faults and fractures and introducing a weak zone in the NW Zagros under the influence of the Main Recent Fault activity may explain this increasing.
