The Berkovići (BIH) ML = 6.0 earthquake sequence of 22 April 2022 – Seismological and seismotectonic analyses

Abstract

In the southeast of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Berkovići earthquake sequence started with the mainshock on 22 April 2022 21:07 UTC at focal depth 22 km with magnitude ML = 6.0 (Mw = 5.7). Our preliminary estimation of the mainshock's maximum intensity is VII EMS for Berkovići where 29% of buildings were damaged. We analysed the first nine months of this sequence, 22 April 2022–22 January 2023. The earthquakes were located using a guided grid-search algorithm with source-specific station corrections as a mean of solutions for 54 combinations of velocity models and program control parameters. The analysis of aleatory variation and epistemic uncertainty showed that they are very dependent on the station coverage, especially for focal depth. The event catalogue consists of 7217 earthquakes and can be considered complete for ML ≥ 1.3. Focal depths (15–30 km) are considerably larger than average for the Dinarides, but consistent within the zone of mid-crustal events where the earthquakes occurred. Focal mechanisms were determined with the first-motion polarity method for eight earthquakes: five of them, including the mainshock, were due to reverse faulting on faults striking in the Dinaric direction, with the preferred main fault gently dipping to the northeast. However, three events were due to normal faulting, unexpected for this area. We constructed a regional seismotectonic cross-section to delineate a potential seismogenic source of the mainshock, and it suggests that the mainshock occurred on the NE-dipping blind ramp of the basal thrust of the Dalmatian tectonic unit. Moreover, another NE-dipping and blind ramp of this basal thrust could be responsible for the Ston–Slano 1996 earthquake, located to the SW of the Berkovići mainshock hypocentre at the horizontal distance of c. 35 km.