Seismicity of the South Far East of Russia in 2020

Abstract

The paper presents an overview of the seismicity of the southern part of the Russian Far East for 2020: the Amur–Primorye region, Sakhalin and Kuril-Okhotsk regions. It is based on the preliminary data from the earthquake catalogs of the Sakhalin Branch of the Federal Research Center “United Geophysical Survey of the Russian Academy of Sciences” (SB FRC UGS RAS). An analysis of the seismicity of the regions for 2020 in comparison with the previous decade is performed. Information about the earthquakes of 2020, which are the most significant and worthy of separate study, is given. These events occurred in the SB FRC UGS RAS responsibility zone: an earthquake near the Zeyskaya HPP, a deep-focus earthquake in the Tatar Strait, an earthquake at intermediate depths in the Southern Kuril Islands, a reverse fault earthquake on the bend of the Pacific lithospheric plate in the Northern Kuril Islands. According to formal indicators, the seismicity of the regions in 2020 remained within the background values, but it approached the upper limit of their range in the Kuril-Okhotsk region and in the mantle under the territory of the Sakhalin region.

Keywords

• earthquakes
• seismicity
• seismic activity
• amur region
• primorye
• sakhalin
• kuril-okhotsk region