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The Lemnos 8 January 2013 (M w = 5.7) earthquake: fault slip, aftershock properties and static stress transfer modeling in the north Aegean Sea

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An Erratum to this article was published on 10 September 2014

Abstract

We investigate mainshock slip distribution and aftershock activity of the 8 January 2013 M w = 5.7 Lemnos earthquake, north Aegean Sea. We analyse the seismic waveforms to better understand the spatio-temporal characteristics of earthquake rupture within the seismogenic layer of the crust. Peak slip values range from 50 to 64 cm and mean slip values range from 10 to 12 cm. The slip patches of the event extend over an area of dimensions 16 × 16 km2. We also relocate aftershock catalog locations to image seismic fault dimensions and test earthquake transfer models. The relocated events allowed us to identify the active faults in this area of the north Aegean Sea by locating two, NE–SW linear patterns of aftershocks. The aftershock distribution of the mainshock event clearly reveals a NE–SW striking fault about 40 km offshore Lemnos Island that extends from 2 km up to a depth of 14 km. After the mainshock most of the seismic activity migrated to the east and to the north of the hypocenter due to (a) rupture directivity towards the NE and (b) Coulomb stress transfer. A stress inversion analysis based on 14 focal mechanisms of aftershocks showed that the maximum horizontal stress is compressional at N84°E. The static stress transfer analysis for all post-1943 major events in the North Aegean shows no evidence for triggering of the 2013 event. We suggest that the 2013 event occurred due to tectonic loading of the North Aegean crust.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the NOA Analysis group for phase picking. The open-source software GMT http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/gmt/ was used to make figures. We thank Dr. Mehmet Yilmazer for his help with KOERI data. We also thank Sean Ford, Thomas Braun and one anonymous reviewer for comments and suggestions. The relocated catalog is available upon request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geodynamics, National Observatory of Athens, Lofos Nymfon, Thission, 11810, Athens, Greece

    Athanassios Ganas, Vassilios Karastathis, Konstantinos Chousianitis, Alexandra Moshou & Evangelos Mouzakiotis

  2. Research Unit of Soil Dynamics and Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Zafeiria Roumelioti

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  1. Athanassios Ganas
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  2. Zafeiria Roumelioti
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  6. Evangelos Mouzakiotis
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Correspondence to Athanassios Ganas.

Appendix

Appendix

The moment tensor solutions for the 14 events in Table 1, as computed using a time-domain moment tensor inversion method, are shown in detail. For each solution, we present the comparison between observed and synthetic waveforms (continuous and dashed lines, respectively) at the inverted stations. For each station, comparisons are shown for the radial, tangential and vertical components. To the left of each plot, we present a summary of the solution and the corresponding beach ball. Numbering of the solutions is as in Table 1.

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Ganas, A., Roumelioti, Z., Karastathis, V. et al. The Lemnos 8 January 2013 (M w = 5.7) earthquake: fault slip, aftershock properties and static stress transfer modeling in the north Aegean Sea. J Seismol 18, 433–455 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-014-9418-3

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