WESTERN MACEDONIA EARTHQUAKE OF 13 MAY, 1995 (M-S = 6.6) AND SEISMIC POTENTIAL OF NORTHERN GREECE

The Western Macedonia earthquake of 13 May, 1995 occurred within a ter ritory where high seismic hazard was not expected. However, the estima tion of the seismic potential of Europe including Northern Greece, con ducted earlier in the United Institute of Physics of the Earth RAS, te stified to the existence of the seismotectonic situations of predomina ntly high prognostical M-max in this region. In particular, epicentral zone of Western Macedonia earthquake has prognostical M-max = 6,7 acc ording to this data. Estimation of seismic potential was performed app lying original seismotectonic method. The essence of this method lies in detecting of the hidden analogies in structure and state of the Ear th's crust on detailed level, relevant to the seismic process. To achi eve this, a zonation of the vast territories with different tectonic u nits was performed, according to the seismotectonic settings. The map of the seismotectonic settings has been obtained after performing the complex detailed typification of Earth's crust on the base of data ref lecting the recent structure and state of the Earth's crust. The types of the Earth's crust are considered as seismotectonic settings due ch osen initial parameters. Comparison of their spatial distribution with seismological data allows to give the prognostical values of M-max to the most of them. Further spreading obtained estimates of M-max in sp ace results in yielding of the zonation of study area according to the seismic potential. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All ri ghts reserved.