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Mechanisms of Earthquakes in Aegean

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Encyclopedia of Earthquake Engineering

Synonyms

Fault-plane solutions; Focal mechanisms; Moment-tensor solutions

Introduction

Definition of Basic Concepts

The focal mechanismillustrates the geometry of faulting during an earthquake. For a fault-related earthquake, the focal mechanism describes the orientation of the causative fault (its strike and dip angle) and the direction of the slip on its plane (rake angle). The pattern of the radiated seismic waves depends on the fault geometry, thus the focal mechanism is determined from seismograms recorded at various distances and azimuths from the seismic source. The simplest method relies on the first-motion polarity of body waves, and the more sophisticated methods are based on waveform modeling of body and surface waves. Fault-plane solutions are described by two mutually orthogonal planes in space, one of which is the fault plane and the other is the auxiliary plane, to which the slip vector is normal. There is an ambiguity in identifying the fault plane on which the slip...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geophysics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54621, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Anastasia A. Kiratzi

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  1. Anastasia A. Kiratzi
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Correspondence to Anastasia A. Kiratzi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Risk & Uncertainty, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

    Michael Beer

  2. Institute for Risk and Uncertainty, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

    Ioannis A. Kougioumtzoglou

  3. Institute for Risk & Uncertainty, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

    Edoardo Patelli

  4. Institute for Risk & Uncertainty, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

    Ivan Siu-Kui Au

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Kiratzi, A.A. (2014). Mechanisms of Earthquakes in Aegean. In: Beer, M., Kougioumtzoglou, I., Patelli, E., Au, IK. (eds) Encyclopedia of Earthquake Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36197-5_299-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36197-5_299-1

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