Satellite Mapping of Fault Rupture From the 1968 and 1979 Dasht-e Bayaz and Khuli-Buniabad Earthquakes, Northeast Iran: Rupture Complexities and Evidence of Rupture Arrest and re-Rupture in Successive Earthquakes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55575/tektonika2024.2.2.48Keywords:
Dasht-e Bayaz earthquake, Khuli-Buniabad earthquake, Iran, Fault rupture, Satellite-based mappingAbstract
The 1936-2008 sequence of earthquakes near Dasht-e Bayaz, northeast Iran involved eleven events greater than Mw5.5, of which six are known to have caused surface fault rupture, and three with Mw>7. Here we present a new satellite-based mapping of the 1968.08.31 Dasht-e Bayaz and 1979.11.27 Khuli-Buniabad Mw7.1 events, which together ruptured ~105 km of the east-west left-lateral Dasht-e Bayaz fault. Previous mapping efforts of these earthquakes were incomplete. Both ruptures are characterized by reaches of high slip separated by reaches of little or no surface slip. The distribution of lateral slips in each the 1968 and 1979 events ranges from ~1.5-4 m, with no gap between their surface ruptures along strike. We use legacy KH-9 satellite imagery acquired between the earthquakes to confirm that ~5 km of fault at the eastern end of the 1968 rupture was reactivated in the 1979 event. The overlap area includes a sharp restraining double bend that can be considered to have acted as an ‘earthquake gate’ during the two events, beyond which rupture continued in the first event, but was arrested in the successive event. This event sequence demonstrates that multiple partial-rupture scenarios should be considered in hazard models derived from paleoseismic data, as the resolution of paleoseismic data would likely not be sufficient to differentiate these two ruptures one decade apart and continuous along strike. Both the Dasht-e Bayaz fault, and the adjoining but perpendicular Abiz fault that ruptured in the 1997 Mw7.2 Zirkuh-Ardekul earthquake, exhibit only few instances of cumulative geomorphic slips from prior ruptures, illustrating the difficulties in identifying potential earthquake sources in regions of distributed, low-slip-rate faulting, and highlighting the challenge of robustly identifying potential seismic sources in source-based seismic hazard models.
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