Abstract
Between 1 January 1980 and 28 July 1981, a series of large earthquakes with body-wave magnitudes around 7, took place along the western segment of the Alpide belt. The sequence started in the Azores and migrated eastward along the belt at a rate of about 4400 km/yr with consecutive large events in northern Algeria, southern Italy, southern Greece and Iran. Two different methods are employed to identify similar series and corresponding migration velocities during earlier time periods of this century. The data set used contains all earthquakes with body-wave magnitudes larger than 6.3 and covers the time interval 1901–81. The concept of linear migration is tested for eastward and/or westward propagation, considering high migration velocities from 1600 to 11 000 km/yr. Results obtained are not homogeneous with respect to the two opposite migration directions, west-east and east-west, and we interpret this as a net drift of earthquake activity from the west to the east. Our efforts here are concentrated on analysis of observational data and on establishing the uniqueness of migration patterns. Because of the complexity of the tectonic system in question, we did not attempt to establish a mechanism explaining the migration of the observed earthquake sequences.
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Meyer, K., Olsson, R., Kulhánek, O. (1985). High-velocity Migration of Large Earthquakes along the Azores-Iran Plate Boundary Segment. In: Shimazaki, K., Stuart, W. (eds) Earthquake Prediction. Pure and applied geophysics. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-6245-5_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-6245-5_6
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Basel
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