Database of Earthquake Focal Mechanisms for the East Arctic Region

Abstract

In this paper, we present a description of a database of earthquake focal mechanisms, which is compiled from the data of international seismological agencies and literature sources for the East Arctic region. It consists of 595 focal mechanism solutions for 273 seismic events with M = 2.1–7.6, which occurred in 1927–2022. Information about the source depth, the scalar seismic moment, and the moment magnitude are also presented there for many events. In addition to the focal parameters, their quality assessments are available, which facilitates a comparison of different solutions in many cases. For user convenience, the database has a graphical interface that permits searching by various attributes (coordinates, time, magnitude, and depth). In terms of volume of the collected information, our database significantly exceeds all the analogues available at the present time. It can be used to perform a seismotectonic analysis, to estimate the stress–strain state of the lithosphere, and to assess seismic hazard for the entire East Arctic region or its separate areas. Implementation of the compiled database for comparison of different solutions of earthquake focal mechanisms and their seismotectonic analysis is illustrated in the paper on the example of seismic events occurred in the Olenek Bay of the Laptev Sea and adjacent territories. We suggest adding new information to the database every five years in future.