The pattern and magnitude of rotational piezomagnetic anomalies along the dip-slip Mosha fault, Northern Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Several active faults affect the Central Alborz, Northern Iran. The main active faults in the region are the North Tehran and the Mosha faults and their westward continuation, the Taleghan fault. Among these the Mosha fault is the most active fault in Central Alborz. The piezomagnetic field has been inspired by many investigations in the earthquake prediction studies and has been reported in the literature. Several theories proposed for relating piezomagnetic changes into magnetic signals accompanying earthquakes in the vicinity of a fault. In this study based on an analytical solution for the elementary piezomagnetic potentials due to an inclined rectangular fault within a semi-infinite elastic medium a computer program has been developed. This program has been used for evaluation of the rotational piezomagnetic changes along the Mosha fault using different earthquakes with specific magnitudes and at the presence of three different geomagnetic main fields. The magnetic data acquired recently at the study area has been used during the modeling. The first result that can be inferred from this study is that rotational piezomagnetic anomalies are completely localized at the fault tips. So for detection of this anomaly the magnetic instruments should be installed at these locations. The other important element which has been investigated was the amount of slip along the fault, which shows anomaly intensification by increase in the amount of slip. © 2008. This work is distributed under.