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The 24 January 2020 Mw 5.0 El Aouana Earthquake, Northeastern Algeria: Insights into a New NW–SE Right-Lateral Bejaia-Babors Shear Zone

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Abstract

On January 24, 2020, a Mw 5.0 earthquake occurred in the El Aouana region, northeastern Algeria. This region is located at the western end of the Lesser Kabylian Block (LKB), a rigid body that was weakly deformed during the late Cenozoic tectonic phase, and it is characterized by a lower seismic activity than that in its bounding regions. The mainshock focal mechanism was estimated via both the P-wave first motion and waveform modeling methods. The earthquake was associated with the rupture of a NW–SE-oriented right-lateral strike-slip fault, as revealed by a 6 km long and 2 km wide aftershock cluster. The seismic moment estimated through waveform modeling was 3.6 × 1016 Nm, while spectral analysis yielded a value of 3.9 × 1016 Nm corresponding to a magnitude of Mw 5.0, a source radius of 1.6 km, and a stress drop of 4 MPa. The spatiotemporal evolution of the aftershock sequence, as modeled using a restricted epidemic-type aftershock sequence (RETAS) stochastic model, yielded a slope p = 1, indicating that the earthquake was generated by tectonic forces and that the aftershock sequence included many subsequences. The calculated stress tensor suggested N–S compression, rotated clockwise relative to NW–SE Eurasia–Africa convergence. Finally, the recent seismic activity (2012–2021) and geological observations in the area led to the suggestion of a new NW–SE right-lateral shear zone, namely, the Bejaia-Babors shear zone, which was incorporated into a seismotectonic growth model involving slip along inherited E–W structures. The pattern of stepover structures throughout this wide shear zone was enhanced during the recent seismic evolution.

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Data Availability

The datum collected from the Algerian Seismological Network, which includes permanent and mobile stations, is primarily used by Algerian researchers. CRAAG, as a research center under the Algerian Interior Ministry, manages the country's national security, including natural hazards. CRAAG is not a Data Management Center like well-known international centers such as IGN (Spain), but it has agreements and conventions with international agencies such as CESM, IGN, and ISC for data exchange, as per the ministry's policy. The data are also used for training young Algerian seismologists to build capacity and expertise in seismology within Algeria or for collaboration with foreign researchers under intra-institutional conventions. This supports Algeria's need for researchers and promotes advancement in the field of seismology.

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Acknowledgements

During the review process, we were surprised by the news announcing the retirement of Prof. Abdelkarim Yelles-Chaouche. We dedicate this work to him, and may his retirement be as remarkable as his efforts in mentoring us. A special thanks to Editor Carla Filomena Braitenberg and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on the original version of the paper. This work was supported by CRAAG, the department of seismology (Project ES-04-2020).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center of Research in Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Geophysics, CRAAG, Route de l’Observatoire BP 63 Bouzaréah, Algiers, Algeria

    Issam Abacha, Oualid Boulahia, Abdelkarim Yelles-Chaouche, Hichem Bendjama, Khaled Roubeche, Sofiane Taki-Eddine Rahmani, Yahia Mohammedi & Chafik Aidi

  2. Museum of Natural History, University of Bergen, Allégaten 41, 5007, Bergen, Norway

    Haakon Fossen

  3. Emerging Materials Research Unit, Department of Earth Sciences, Institute of Architecture and Earth Sciences, Ferhat Abbas University Setif 1, Setif, Algeria

    Moulley Charaf Chabou

  4. Departement of Physics, Ferhat Abbas University Setif 1, Setif, Algeria

    El-Mahdi Tikhamarine

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Contributions

AI and HB conceived, interpreted the results, and wrote the main manuscript text. AI and OB collected the data. AI produced the figures and participated in the processing of data. OB, KR, and STR participated in the processing of data. HF and AYC reviewed the manuscript and participated in the interpretation of the results. MCC worked out the onshore geologic evidence in the discussion and YM wrote the geologic framework and prepared the geologic map. E-MT redid the relocations, estimated the relocation errors using bootstrapping, and analyzed the spatio-temporal evolution. CA helped in collecting permanent station records. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Issam Abacha.

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Supplementary Information

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24_2023_3265_MOESM1_ESM.jpg

Supplementary file1 a Moment tensor solution and best-fit waveforms for the January 24, 2020, Mw 5.0 El Aouana mainshock (MS) event. The black and red lines indicate the observed and synthetic data, respectively. The values in the legend at the top denote the moment tensor parameters, best-fit fault-plane solutions, scalar moment M0, Mw, variance, and focal depth. The text labels on each trace are the amplitudes in cm s-1. The stations used in the moment tensor inversion are shown in Fig. 3a. b Idem for the February 21, 2020, Mw 4.4 largest aftershock (LA) (JPG 3368 KB)

24_2023_3265_MOESM2_ESM.jpg

Supplementary file2 Example displacement spectra at station ABSD. Left panel: Three-component instrumentally corrected velocity seismograms of the January 24, 2020, Mw 5.0 El Aouana mainshock. The pink shaded areas indicate the time windows used for the P-wave trains, which are represented in the central panels. Right panels: Displacement spectra of the P-wave seismograms. The blue, black, and purple lines are the fitted, observed, and smoothed spectra, respectively. The red dots indicate Ω0 (lower frequency) and fc (higher frequency) (JPG 2959 KB)

Supplementary file3 Examples of event groups with CC ≥ 0.8 recorded at stations SP01 and CDFR (JPG 2709 KB)

24_2023_3265_MOESM4_ESM.jpg

Supplementary file4 Lower hemisphere equal-area projections of the focal sphere for the current study earthquakes. The polarity observations at each station are shown as plain circles: white if the polarity is compressional and black if it is dilatational (JPG 3455 KB)

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Abacha, I., Boulahia, O., Yelles-Chaouche, A. et al. The 24 January 2020 Mw 5.0 El Aouana Earthquake, Northeastern Algeria: Insights into a New NW–SE Right-Lateral Bejaia-Babors Shear Zone. Pure Appl. Geophys. 180, 1945–1971 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-023-03265-3

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