View article

The 1998 March 14 Fandoqa earthquake (M_s6.6) was the penultimate in a series of five substantial earthquakes on the Gowk fault system of southeast Iran since 1981, all of which were associated with co-seismic surface ruptures. We use observations of surface faulting, analysis of P and SH body waves, SAR interferometry and geomorphology to investigate the ruptures in these earthquakes and how they are related both to each other and to the regional active tectonics. The 1998 Fandoqa earthquake produced 23km of surface faulting with up to 3m right-lateral strike-slip and 1m vertical offsets. SAR interferometry and seismic waveforms show that the main rupture plane dipped west at ∼50° and had a normal component, although the surface ruptures were more complicated, being downthrown to both the east and the west on steep faults in near-surface sediments. In addition, SAR interferometry shows that …