Revised catalogue of earthquake mechanisms for the events occurred in Romania until the end of twentieth century: REFMC

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present the most comprehensive catalogue of focal mechanisms for Romanian earthquakes which occurred between 1929 and 2000 in the Carpathian Orogen, the Moesian and Moldavian Platforms, and the Transylvanian Basin. The present catalogue (REFMC) is a first step toward creating a centralized and continuous database of earthquake mechanisms in Romania by revising and updating existing data for the twentieth century, which together with the Romanian earthquake catalogue (ROMPLUS)—continuously updated by the National Institute for Earth Physics, provides the fundamental information for any seismicity or seismic hazard assessment. In order to produce a close-to definitive version compatible with more recent and less uncertain focal mechanisms solutions, we revised multiple sets of data (some of which newly found), recalculated and corrected some of the fault-plane solutions and reached a consensus. The catalogue comprises 250 crustal events and 416 intermediate-depth events recorded in the twentieth century starting from 1929. On the basis of the new catalogue data and seismotectonic investigation, we propose a reconfiguration of the seismogenic zones located along Southern Carpathians toward the western side of Romania.