A declustered earthquake catalog for the iranian plateau

Abstract

A unified and a declustered catalog of earthquakes in Iran and adjacent regions (the area bounded in 22°-42° N and 42°-66° E) covering the period of 4th century B.C. through 2012 is provided. The catalog includes all events for which magnitude have been determined by international and local agencies and most reliable individual sources. Uncertainties of magnitude scales are estimated. Empirical formulae are established to convert magnitude scales using General Orthogonal Regression (GOR) method considering the estimated error variance ratio h. The results are compared to other regression methods e.g. SR, ISR and OR. The catalog is unified to Mw and Ms and the uncertainties of reported and converted Mw are inserted the catalog. The unified catalog is declustered using conjugate distance-time windows. The magnitude of completeness (Mc) is worked out by applying Entire–Magnitude–Range (EMR) method to the declustered catalog in each seismotectonic province. The Mc decreases with development of local and regional seismic stations. The results of present study are particularly important in seismic hazard analysis in Iran.