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Analysis of the stress field and strain rate in Zagros-Makran transition zone

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Abstract

Transition boundary between Zagros continental collision and Makran oceanic-continental subduction can be specified by two wide limits: (a) Oman Line is the seismicity boundary with a sizeable reduction in seismicity rate from Zagros in the west to Makran in the east; and (b) the Zendan-Minab-Palami (ZMP) fault system is believed to be a prominent tectonic boundary. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the stress field in the Zagros-Makran transition zone by the iterative joint inversion method developed by Vavrycuk (Geophysical Journal International 199:69-77, 2014). The results suggest a rather uniform pattern of the stress field around these two boundaries. We compare the results with the strain rates obtained from the Global Positioning System (GPS) network stations. In most cases, the velocity vectors show a relatively good agreement with the stress field except for the Bandar Abbas (BABS) station which displays a relatively large deviation between the stress field and the strain vector. This deviation probably reflects a specific location of the BABS station being in the transition zone between Zagros continental collision and Makran subduction zones.

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Acknowledgements

We thank V. Vavrycuk for his helpful comments.

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Correspondence to Ghasem Ghorbani Rostam.

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Ghorbani Rostam, G., Pakzad, M., Mirzaei, N. et al. Analysis of the stress field and strain rate in Zagros-Makran transition zone. J Seismol 22, 287–301 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-017-9705-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-017-9705-x

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