DOI: 10.5880/gfz.ews.2015.002
title: EMCA Central Asia seismic source model

description: Version History11 Sep 2019: Release of Version 1.1 with the following changes: (1) new licence: CC BY SA 4.0, modification of the title: removal of file name and version); (2) addition of ORIDs when available; (3) actualisation of affiliations for some authors The metadata of the first version 1.0 is available in the download folder.. Data and file names remain unchanged. Area Source model for Central AsiaThe area sources for Central Asia within the EMCA model are defined by mainly considering the pattern of crustal seismicity down to 50 km depth. Although tectonic and geological information, such as the position and strike distribution of known faults, have also been taken into account when available. Large area sources (see, for example source_id 1, 2, 5, 45 and 52, source ids are identified by parameter “source_id” in the related shapefile) are defined where the seismicity is scarce and there are no tectonic or geological features that would justify a further subdivision. Smaller area sources (e.g., source_id values 36 and 53) have been designed where the seismicity can be assigned to known fault zones.In order to obtain a robust estimation of the necessary parameters for PSHA derived by the statistical analysis of the seismicity, due to the scarcity of data in some of the areas covered by the model, super zones are introduced. These super zones are defined by combining area sources based on similarities in their tectonic regime, and taking into account local expert’s judgments. The super zones are used to estimate: (1) the completeness time of the earthquake catalogue, (2) the depth distribution of seismicity, (3) the tectonic regime through focal mechanisms analysis, (4) the maximum magnitude and (5) the b values via the GR relationship.The earthquake catalogue for focal mechanism is extracted from the Harvard Global Centroid Moment Tensor Catalog (Ekström and Nettles, 2013). For the focal mechanism classification, the Boore et al. (1997) convention is used. This means that an event is considered to be strike-slip if the absolute value of the rake angle is &lt;=30 or &gt;=150 degrees, normal if the rake angle is -150 and reverse (thrust) if the rake angle is &gt;30 or &lt;150 degrees. The distribution of source mechanisms and their weights are estimated for the super zones.For area sources, the maximum magnitude is usually taken from the historical seismicity, but due to some uncertainties in the magnitudes of the largest events, the opinions of the local experts are also included in assigning the maximum magnitude to each super zone. Super zones 2 and 3, which belongs to stable regions, are each assigned a maximum magnitude of 6, after Mooney et al. (2012), which concludes after analyses and observation of modern datasets that at least an event of magnitude 6 can occur anywhere in the world. For hazard calculations, each area source is assigned the maximum magnitude of their respective super zone.For processing the GR parameters (a and b values) for the area sources, the completeness analysis results estimated for the super zones are assigned to the respective smaller area sources. If the individual area source has at least 20 events, the GR parameters are then estimated for the area source. Otherwise, the b value is adopted from the respective super zone to which the smaller area source belongs, and the a value is estimated based on the Weichert (1980) method. This ensures the stability in the b value as well as the variation of activity rate for different sources.The hypocentral depth distribution is estimated from the seismicity inside each super zone. The depth distribution is considered for maximum up to three values. Based on the number of events, the weights are assigned to each distribution. These depth distributions, along with corresponding weights, are further assigned to the area sources within the same super zones.
description: Distribution file: "EMCA_seismozonesv1.0_shp.zip"Version: v1.0Release date: 2015-07-30Format: ESRI ShapefileGeometry type: polygonsNumber of features: 63Spatial Reference System: +proj=longlat +ellps=WGS84 +datum=WGS84 +no_defs Distribution file: "EMCA_seismozonesv1.0_nrml.zip"Version: v1.0Release date: 2015-07-30Format: NRML (XML) Format compatible with the GEM OpenQuake platform (http://www.globalquakemodel.org/openquake/about/platform/) Feature attributes:src_id : Id of the seismic sourcesrc_name : Name of the seismic sourcetect_reg: Tectonic regime of the seismic sourceupp_seismo : Upper level of the the seismogenic depth (km)low_seismo : Lower level of the seismogenic depth (km)mag_scal_r: Magnitude scaling relationshiprup_asp_ra: Rupture aspect ratiomfd_type : Magnitude frequency distribution typemin_mag: Minimum magnitude of the magnitude frequency relationshipmax_mag: Maximum magnitude of the magnitude frequency relationshipa_value: a value of the magnitude frequency relationshipb_balue : b value of the magnitude frequency relationshipnum_npd: number of nodal plane distributionweight_1 : weight of 1st nodal plane distributionstrike_1: Strike of the seismic source (degrees)rake_1: rake of the seismic source (degrees)dip_1: dip of the seismic source (degrees)num_hdd: number of hypocentral depth distributionhdd_d_1: Depth of 1st hypocentral depth distribution (km)hdd_w_1: Weight of 1st hypocentral depth distribution