Determination of causative fault parameters for some recent Iranian earthquakes using near field SH-wave data

Abstract

A method based on a point source representation and non-linear least square formulation, which estimates the strike, dip and rake of the causative fault, has been used to infer the causative fault plane parameters using strong ground motion data for the some recent earthquakes in Iran. This study indicates that the analysis of SH-Waves of near field accelerographs can distinguish the fault plane from the auxiliary plane. This method is especially helpful, when lack of information such as surface rupture, aftershock data and isoseismal maps makes it difficult to identify causative fault plane in the fault plane solution. The estimated fault plane parameters from inversion of the near field data based on the point source model for these earthquakes are in fair agreement with solutions given by HRV and NEIC.