On the Problem of Deep Earthquakes in Crimea–Black Sea Region

It is a common opinion that only crustal earthquakes can occur in the Crimea–Black Sea region. Since the existence of deep earthquakes in the Crimea–Black Sea region is extremely important for the construction of a geodynamic model for this region, an attempt is made to verify the validity of this widespread view. To do this, the coordinates of all earthquakes recorded by the stations of the Crimean seismological network are reinterpreted with an algorithm developed by one of the authors. The data published in the seismological catalogs and bulletins of the Crimea–Black Sea region for 1970–2012 are used for the analysis. To refine the coordinates of hypocenters of earthquakes in the Crimea–Black Sea region, in addition to the data from stations of the Crimean seismological network, information from seismic stations located around the Black Sea coast are used. In total, the data from 61 seismic stations were used to determine the hypocenter coordinates. The used earthquake catalogs for 1970–2012 contain information on ~2140 events with magnitudes from–1.5 to 5.5. The bulletins provide information on the arrival times of P- and S-waves at seismic stations for 1988 events recorded by three or more stations. The principal innovation of this study is the use of the original author’s hypocenter determination algorithm, which minimizes the functional of distances between the points (X, Y, H) and (x, y, h) corresponding to the theoretical and observed seismic wave travel times from the earthquake source to the recording stations. The determination of the coordinates of earthquake hypocenters is much more stable in this case than the usual minimization of the residual functional for the arrival time of an earthquake wave at a station (the difference between the theoretical and observed values). Since determination of the hypocenter coordinates can be influenced by the chosen velocity column beneath each station, special attention is focused on collecting information on velocity profiles. To evaluate the influence of the upper mantle on the results of calculating the velocity model, two different low-velocity and high-velocity models are used; the results are compared with each other. Both velocity models are set to a depth of 640 km, which is fundamentally important in determining hypocenters for deep earthquakes. Studies of the Crimea–Black Sea region have revealed more than 70 earthquakes with a source depth of more than 60 km. The adequacy of the obtained depth values is confirmed by the results of comparing the initial experimental data from the bulletins with the theoretical travel-time curves for earthquake sources with depths of 50 and 200 km. The sources of deep earthquakes found in the Crimea–Black Sea region significantly change our understanding of the structure and geotectonics of this region.