A recent Mw 4.3 earthquake proving activity of a shallow strike-slip fault in the northern part of the Western Desert, Egypt
Abstract
The Mw 4.3 earthquake of September 2015 is the first felt earthquake since 1900 A.D in the northern part of the Western Desert, Egypt, south of the El-Alamein City. The available waveform data observed at epicentral distances 52-391 km was collected and carefully evaluated.
Nine broad-band stations were selected to invert full waveforms for the centroid position (horizontal and vertical) and for the focal mechanism solution. The first-arrival travel times, polarities and low-frequency full waveforms (0.03-0.08 Hz) are consistently explained in this paper as caused by a shallow source of the strike-slip mechanism.
This finding indicates causal relation of this earthquake to the W-E trending South El Alamein fault, which developed in Late Cretaceous as dextral strike slip fault. Recent activity of this fault, proven by the studied rare earthquake, is of fundamental importance for future seismic hazard evaluations, underlined by proximity (similar to 65 km) of the source zone to the first nuclear power plant planned site in Egypt.
Safe exploration and possible future exploitation of hydrocarbon reserves, reported around El-Alamein fault in the last decade, cannot be made without considering the seismic potential of this fault.