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Fault parameters of the Tabas-e-Golshan earthquake, September 16, 1978 (eastern Iran), based on macroseismic observations, with locations for dating to improve the dataset

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Abstract

Estimating the macroseismic parameters of earthquakes such as location, magnitude, and fault orientation can be helpful to complete the earthquake catalogs, especially on historical ones or the ones whose parameters were estimated with low accuracy. This study aims to estimate the macroseismic parameters of Tabas earthquake (1978.09.16) using its reported descriptions, Macroseismic Data Points (MDPs). MDPs include any descriptions of earthquake effects on building damages and environmental effects of each location affected by the earthquake. Macroseismic dataset of Tabas earthquake is collected from different documents. Thus, this dataset is used to estimate the macroseismic parameters of this earthquake: macroseismic location, magnitude, intensity, and source parameters. Results estimate the macroseismic epicenter of this earthquake at 33.49°N–56.94°E with the moment magnitude, Mw, 7.1 and the maximum macroseismic intensity value XI in both EMS and ESI intensity scales. Its estimated source orientation is consistent to Tabas fault system in the direction NNW-SSE with the strike, length, and width value of the source in 166.8°, 55.8 ± 7.5 km, and 18.2 ± 1.4 km, respectively. Moreover, for future studies, the locations near Khosro Abad, close to the macroseismic epicenter of this earthquake, are suggested for the next field studies, sampling the sediments related to the past evidences and dating them.

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Data availability

Datasets related to this article were extracted from various documents, papers, and reports published by different centers and researchers. Centers and webpages such as International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (IIEES) (http://www.iiees.ac.ir/fa/eqreports/), Statistical Centre of Iran (http://amar.org.ir/), EHB bulletin of Engdahl (http://www.isc.ac.uk/ehbbulletin/), Global CMT catalog (http://www.globalcmt.org/CMTsearch.html), and National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/contactus/golden/neic.php). Papers and documents such as Berberian (1982, 1979a, b), Sharp and Orsini (1978), Akasheh and Eshghi (1980), Niazi and Kanamori (1981), Walker et al. (2003, 2013), Statistical Centre of Iran (2006), Papeli Yazdi (1989), and Mofakham Payan (1960).

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. Morteza Fattahi and two journal reviewers for their careful reading of the manuscript and constructive comments to improve it.

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  1. Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    H. Amini

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Writing—original draft, investigation, and preparing what is needed such as figures, maps, and tables were done by H. Amini. Author agrees to the published version of the manuscript.

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Amini, H. Fault parameters of the Tabas-e-Golshan earthquake, September 16, 1978 (eastern Iran), based on macroseismic observations, with locations for dating to improve the dataset. J Seismol 27, 707–718 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-023-10159-3

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