Earthquake Precursors Assessment in Vrancea Region Through Satellite and In Situ Monitoring Data

Abstract

Vrancea active zone has a high seismic hazard in Romania and in the European-Mediterranean region, generating normal, strong or moderate intermediate depth earthquakes on a confined epicentral area. In this paper, for seismic hazard analysis in Vrancea region have been selected the earthquake precursors anomalies detectable from space as well as in situ monitoring: land surface temperature (LST) and air surface temperature (AT), and outgoing long wave radiation (OLR), provided by time-series satellite MODIS (Terra/Aqua) and AVHRR (NOAA), Landsat TM/ETM, as well as seismicity recorded prior to moderate or strong earthquakes. This study investigated March, 4th 1977, Mw = 7.4, H = 94 km and October 27th 2004, Mw = 5.9, H = 96 km earthquakes. The joint analysis of geospatial, geophysical, geochemical, seismological and geological information is revealing new insights in the understanding of the kinematics and dynamics of the complex plate boundary system present in the Eastern Carpathians as support of lithosphere-surfacesphere-atmosphere coupling model.