COMPILATION OF AVAILABLE SEISMOTECTONIC DATA FOR NORTH MACEDONIA AS AN INPUT FOR PSHA

Abstract

N. Macedonia is a country characterized by relatively high seismic activity. As a consequence of its special tectonic regime, and quite frequent occurrence of damaging earthquakes, necessity for reliable seismic hazard and risk assessments are of outmost importance. Initial and one of the most important steps in PSHA is the seismic source characterization. Previously used seismic hazard models at the national level (Mihailov, 1978; Milutinovic et al., 1998; Dojcinovski, 2005; Stamatovska and Koytcheva, 2013; Salic, 2015; Milutinovic et al., 2016) consisted in areal type and/or gridded seismicity sources (Salic, 2015; Milutinovic et al., 2016), owing to the lack of seismogenic active fault parameters. All up to date available national (Basic Geological Map 1:100.000; Arsovski and Petkovski, 1975; Janchevski, 1987; Petkovski, 1992; Arsovski, 1997; Dumurdzanov et al., 2005; Drogreshka, 2018) and regional and European (EDSF13 and EFSM20) fault parametrization data were summarized and comparatively analysed. Three main declustered catalogues of earthquakes (National Seismological Observatory, BSHAP project, and ESHM20-Unified Earthquake Catalogue) for the territory of N. Macedonia and border region were also described and comparatively analysed. Histogram analysis related to different earthquake parameters were performed and compared together with the time completeness checks. As addition fault-plane solutions extracted from international or local seismic agencies concerning the studied region were analysed and systemised (Harvard CMT, INGV, EMEC, EPICA, BSHAP, Drogreshka, 2018). In this study, gaps and inconsistencies were drawn out from these data and alternative state-of-the-art methodologies were proposed to be used for seismogenic fault parametrization as a critical step towards reliable seismic hazard assessment.