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Source mechanism and stress analysis of 23 October 2011 Van Earthquake (Mw = 7.1) and aftershocks

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Abstract

On 23 October 2011 at 1341 local time, a strong earthquake (Mw = 7.1) occurred east of Lake Van (KOERI; Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute). The focal parameters of the main shock and 29 aftershocks with M ≥ 4.0 were obtained from regional broadband seismic data from KOERI network by using Regional Moment Tensor Inversion Code (Dreger 2002). It is confirmed that the main shock had thrust faulting mechanism. The stress tensor analysis was completed using the focal mechanism solutions and the software developed by (Gephart Comp Geosci 16: 953-989, 1990). The maximum principal stress (P compressional) of the main shock is aligned in a N-S (NNW/SSE) direction and the tensional axis (T dilatation) is aligned in an E-W (ENE-WSW) direction. The b value is calculated as 0.96 using the maximum likelihood method (Utsu 1999).

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Boğaziçi University Research Fund within the scope of project BAP/SRP 6671. We thank the Boğaziçi University Research Fund Commission and members. The generic mapping tools, GMT, (Wessel and Smith 1995) were used for mapping.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute, National Earthquake Monitoring Center, Boğaziçi University, 34684, Çengelköy, Istanbul, Turkey

    Doğan Kalafat, Kıvanç Kekovalı, Feyza Akkoyunlu & Zafer Ögütçü

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  1. Doğan Kalafat
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  2. Kıvanç Kekovalı
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  3. Feyza Akkoyunlu
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  4. Zafer Ögütçü
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Correspondence to Feyza Akkoyunlu.

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Kalafat, D., Kekovalı, K., Akkoyunlu, F. et al. Source mechanism and stress analysis of 23 October 2011 Van Earthquake (Mw = 7.1) and aftershocks. J Seismol 18, 371–384 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-013-9413-0

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