Seismic Hazard Assessment of Northern Iraq

Volume 1 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , Pages 319-330

Authors

¹ Washington University in Saint Louis, Campus Box 1169, One Brookings Drive, Saint Louis, MO 63130, USA.

² Array Information Technology, 5130 Commercial Drive, Suite B, Melbourne, FL 32940, USA.

Seismic hazard assessment is the estimation of the likelihood that an earthquake will

occur in a given geographic area, within a particular window of time, and that it develops

ground motion acceleration or intensity at a specific place within a specific area that

exceeds a given threshold. It can be used as a tool for rational planning and designing in

seismically active areas. For seismic hazard quantification, statistical analyzes of

earthquake catalogs of northern Iraq and surrounding regions are carried out to estimate

the rate and spatial distribution of earthquake events as a function of the magnitude and

geographical location. Most techniques for estimating the likelihood of occurrence

within a particular area are based on historical data of that region. An essential step in

characterizing seismic hazards in an area is to determine the frequency and location of

past earthquakes. Earthquakes tend to cluster around the most active faults. Kernel

density estimators using a Gaussian kernel are applied to assess seismic hazard in the

area. We performed Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA) to quantify the

probability of exceeding a given ground motion in the area. The highest probability of

seismic hazard exists in the northeastern part of Iraq and the Zagros regions. The

seismic hazard is lowest to the west and south of northern Iraq, in the Mesopotamian

valley. The comparison between the obtained results and the seismotectonic models of

Iraq reveals that the current distribution of regional earthquakes agrees with the

seismotectonic provinces of Iraq.

Statistics