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SEISMICITY VERSUS PRECIPITATION REGIME IN VRANCEA ZONE, ROMANIA

Dumitru Ioane, Irina-Marilena Stanciu

Abstract

There are already numerous attempts to scientifically relate seismicity to a number of precursors in seismologically active areas. There are also attempts to identify phenomena that may trigger the seismic events, especially the high magnitude ones, such as active tectonics or the Sun пїЅ Earth пїЅ Moon gravitational interactions. When studying the ROMPLUS Earthquake Catalogue [1], the time variability of seismicity in the Vrancea zone, characterized by both crustal and intermediate depths earthquakes, the results show particular correlations with the year seasons and even with season months. For the time interval 984 пїЅ 2016 the seismic events having Mw ? 5 illustrate two main time intervals with highest seismicity: a) October and November with 30 and 36 earthquakes; b) March and May, with 26 and 28 earthquakes. The lowest number of seismic events, ranging between 15 and 18, are observed in June, July, September and December. There are different possibilities of representing the recorded seismologic data of various magnitudes and for different intervals of time, and the main features describing significant differences between Spring + Autumn (higher seismicity) and Summer + Winter (lower seismicity) are preserved. In our understanding at this preliminary stage of this research, the main cause of higher seismicity in the Vrancea zone in Spring and Autumn is due to rich precipitations and/or snow melting in these seasons. The water infiltrates at high depths and enhances the tectonic activity along active faults. During Summer the precipitation regime is weaker, while during Winter the water is mostly represented by snow and its infiltration deepward is usually prohibited by frost.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2017/14/s05.048

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