Seismotectonic implications of relocated aftershock sequences in Iran and Turkey

Abstract

Six aftershock sequences in Iran and Turkey are relocated using existing teleseismic data. Two of these are in the Zagros mountains where local fieldwork has failed to detect subcrustal seismicity but published teleseismic locations show depths greater than 100 km. All apparently deep events are shown to be small and badly recorded with poor depth resolution. There is thus no evidence for active lithospheric subduction in the Zagros. Relocations of other sequences in Iran and Turkey are used with fault plane solutions, satellite photographs and surface faulting to provide new insight on the geometry of faulting and crustal deformation of those regions. Linear seismic trends from these sequences are shown to cut older geological structures and do not always bear a simple relation to surface faulting. In such cases aftershock activity may be on primary buried faults whose behaviour is not simply revealed in surface structure and deformation. A linearized inversion scheme is used to investigate the trade-off between resolution and uncertainty in the hypocentral parameters. The ultimate resolution of teleseismic locations is shown to be limited by the quality of arrival time data.