NORTHERN CAUCASUS

Abstract

. It is reported that 59 seismic stations operated in the region in 2013. In the western and eastern parts of the region, new stations equipped with Russian digital equipment UGRA were opened: Aibga, Fisht, Karaman. The seismic network recorded 1941 earthquakes and 34 explosions in industrial quarries. 37 earthquakes were felt in the settlements of the Caucasus. The maximum shaking intensity, equal to Imax=6 on the MSK-64 scale, was felt during earthquakes on April 16 at 12h26m with КР=11.8 in the settlements of Kichi-Gamri, Mamaul, Myurego of Dagestan. Swarms of weak earthquakes with КР=4–8 were recorded in the Greater So-chi, Krasnaya Polyana areas, in Kabardino-Balkaria, and in the adjacent territory of Georgia in the area of Kazbek volcano. The area of manifestation of earthquakes with intermediate hypocenter depths, which previously belonged only to the Terek-Caspian trough (the territory of the Chechen Republic) along the diagonal Benoy-Eldarov suture zone, expanded in 2013 to the southeast and advanced under the structures of the Dagestan wedge. According to the level of seismic energy released, seismicity of the territory of the North Caucasus in 2013 characterized in accordance with the scale of the seismicity level as “background low” for the period of observations from 1962 to 2013. The strongest earthquakes occur in the connection zones of the main tectonic structures.