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Observations of seismic activity in Southern
Lebanon

T. Meirova & R. Hofstetter

Journal of Seismology

ISSN 1383-4649

J Seismol
DOI 10.1007/s10950-012-9343-2

1 23
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 Author's personal copy
J Seismol
DOI 10.1007/s10950-012-9343-2
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Observations of seismic activity in Southern Lebanon
T. Meirova & R. Hofstetter
Received: 18 March 2012 / Accepted: 31 October 2012
# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012
Abstract Recent seismic activity in southern Lebanon
is of particular interest since the tectonic framework of
this region is poorly understood. In addition, seismicity
in this region is very infrequent compared with the
Roum fault to the east, which is seismically active.
Between early 2008 and the end of 2010, intense seis-
mic activity occurred in the area. This was manifested
by several swarm-like sequences and continuous trick-
ling seismicity over many days, amounting in total to
more than 900 earthquakes in the magnitude range of
0.5≤Md ≤5.2. The region of activity extended in a 40-
km long zone mainly in a N-S direction and was located
about 10 km west of the Roum fault. The largest earth-
quake, with a duration magnitude of Md 05.2, occurred
on February 15, 2008, and was located at 33.327° N,
35.406° E at a depth of 3 km. The mean-horizontal peak
ground acceleration observed at two nearby accelerom-
eters exceeded 0.05 g, where the strongest peak hori-
zontal acceleration was 55 cm/s2 at about 20 km SE of
the epicenter. Application of the HypoDD algorithm
yielded a pronounced N-S zone, parallel to the Roum
fault, which was not known to be seismically active.
T. Meirova (*)
Department of Geophysical, Atmospheric and Planetary
Sciences, Tel Aviv University,
Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
e-mail: mtanya@post.tau.ac.il
R. Hofstetter
Geophysical Institute of Israel,
Lod 71100, Israel
e-mail: rami@seis.mni.gov.il
Focal mechanism, based on full waveform inversion
and the directivity effect of the strongest earthquake,
suggests left-lateral strike-slip NNW-SSE faulting that
crosses the NE-SW traverse faults in southern Lebanon.
Keywords Earthquake . Lebanon . Roum . Seismic
activity . Focal mechanism
1 Introduction
The northern part of the Dead Sea Fault (DSF), known
as the Lebanese segment, splits into several splays in-
cluding the Yammouneh, Rachaya, and Roum faults
(Fig. 1). This probably occurred in response to the
clockwise rotation of the upper part of the crust (Ron
1987). Left-lateral motion on this segment is distributed
between several branches of the DSF and most of the
motion is accommodated by the NNE trending
Yammouneh fault (Walley 1998). Recent offshore seis-
mic studies (Carton et al. 2004) suggest that the strike-
perpendicular and strike-parallel components of motion
are accommodated along the Yammouneh fault.
However, some studies suggest that this fault has been
locked for a long time and most of the plate motion is
occurring along the Roum fault (i.e., Walley 1988; Khair
2001; Nemer and Meghraoui 2006), which splits from
the Dead Sea fault and continues towards the
Mediterranean coast. Sinistral displacement along the
north-south striking Roum fault decreases northward
from 8.5 to 1 km and is transferred to a thrust fault along
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ƒFig. 1 a Schematic map of the study region showing the major
faults of the Levant. The box in the figure shows the study area.
Open triangles, diamonds and squares denote the seismic sta-
tions used in the location and relocation procedures. b The study
area and seismicity from 1960 to 2008. c Subset of seismicity in
southern Lebanon from 2008 to 2010. Small and big stars
indicate the two first largest shocks of Md 4.3 and Md 5.2,
respectively. The size of the earthquake symbol is proportional
to the magnitude
the continental margin (Daeron et al. 2004). Ginzburg
and Ben Avraham (1987) and Ben-Avraham et al.
(2002) proposed the existence of an ocean-continent
boundary west of the Roum fault and close to the shore.
Schattner et al. (2006) showed evidence of reactivation
of the continental margin in the area between the Carmel
structure and eastern Cyprean arc. Our study area is
situated south-west of the Roum fault (Ron 1987;
Walley 1998; Fig. 1). This is part of the western
Galilee-Lebanon province (Schattner et al. 2006), char-
acterized by internal deformation resulting from shear-
ing in a general NW-SE direction and acts as a buffer
zone that absorbs the transformed energy from the Dead
Sea fault. The seismicity of the fault zone is character-
ized by moderate earthquakes with a release interval of
40–50 years (Khair 2001). Structurally, the study region
is a low-altitude area, largely below 500 m, that forms a
NNE-SSW trending anticline cut by a number of small-
scale slightly arcuate NE-SW faults, with evidence of
basement involvement in these structures (Walley
1998). Evidence of transpressive faulting systems is
based on palaeoseismic investigations (Daeron et al.
2004). Clockwise rotation of blocks bounded by the
NE-striking right-lateral faults in the area is inferred,
based on similar structures farther south (Ron 1987).
From 1960 to 2008, limited tectonic and seismic
activity occurred south of the Roum fault. (Fig. 1b).
During February 2008, very intense seismic activity in
southern Lebanon began, in an area that was not
known to be seismically active, continuing through
the end of 2010 at a decreasing rate but with a few
pronounced bursts of seismicity (Fig. 2c). Overall, the
high rate of seismicity from 2008 to 2010 relative to
the seismic activity in former years is surprising.
In this paper, we present spatial and temporal distri-
bution of this earthquake activity in Lebanon. We also
use the double-difference algorithm to relocate earth-
quake hypocenters in order to enhance the picture of
seismicity distribution and to specify the dimensions of
the activated area. In order to understand the tectonic
framework in the region, we determine the focal mech-
anisms of the largest earthquakes that occurred from
2008 to 2010, using a full waveform inversion.
Finally, we determine scaling relations of this seismic
activity.
2 Distribution of seismicity in space and time
2.1 Temporal and spatial seismicity distribution
The whole time-window from 2008 to 2010 can be
viewed as a period of intense and non-uniform seismic
activity, significantly above the normal rate in this re-
gion, which involves four substantial bursts of seismic
energy at different times (Fig. 2). These bursts do not
exhibit the same pattern. For example, in the second
burst, the strongest earthquake occurred roughly in the
middle of the burst, while the others are composed of
somewhat smaller-magnitude events. In between seis-
mic bursts, there was a trickle of seismic activity. Even
this trickle was above the normal rate of former years.
The term earthquake swarm is normally used to de-
scribe a cluster of small to moderate earthquakes that
occur continuously and relatively uniformly over a long
period of time spanning hours to days with no distinct
mainshock. Activity in southern Lebanon cannot be de-
scribed as a typical sequence of foreshocks, mainshock,
and aftershocks or as a sequence of a typical swarm in
various environments (e.g., Brune and Allen 1967;
Johnson and Hadley 1976; Forsyth et al. 2003; Vidale
and Shearer 2006). In contrast to typical mainshock-
aftershock sequence with one strong event, the earth-
quake swarm may contain a few relatively strong earth-
quakes that occur later in the sequence (i.e., Roland and
McGuire 2009). Thus, we prefer to use the term burst of
seismic energy. Nevertheless, we examined seismic ac-
tivity in three ways: as a swarm-like seismic activity,
seismicity rate of the whole activity during 2008-2010,
and the decay rate of short-period seismic bursts.
Between 2008 and 2010, data from more than 900
earthquakes in the duration magnitude range 1.1≤Md ≤
5.2 were collected by the seismic networks of Lebanon,
Israel, Jordan, and Cyprus (Fig. 1), comprising 16 mod-
erately to strongly felt earthquakes with duration magni-
tudes larger than Md 3.5, and 41 earthquakes in the
magnitude range 2.5≤Md ≤3.5. Seismic activity was lim-
ited to a near rectangle with dimensions of 30×10 km,
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Fig. 2 a Histogram show-
ing the temporal distribu-
tion of earthquakes in
southern Lebanon during
2008–2010 in 2-week steps
and the cumulative number
of earthquakes. b A closer
look at the decay of the
seismic bursts 1–2 from
February 2008
aligned along a north-south trend located about 10 km
west of the Yammouneh-Roum faults (Fig. 1c). Seismic
activity in southern Lebanon began on February 11,
2008, with a moderate earthquake of Md 04.2 that was
followed by a series of earthquakes with magnitudes less
than 2. On February 15, 2008, at 10:36 am (GMT), the
strongest earthquake in the series occurred (Md 5.2),
which was also the most powerful earthquake that has
ever taken place in the region. The earthquake was wide-
ly felt over wide regions of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and
Israel. Mean-horizontal peak ground acceleration
recorded at two Israeli accelerometers exceeded 50 cm/
s2, and the strongest peak horizontal acceleration was
55 cm/s2 at about 20 km SE of the epicenter. Since the
occurrence of these earthquakes, there was an overall
decrease in the rate of seismic activity. However, in the
beginning of May 2008, seismic activity again increased,
comprising hundreds of earthquakes, though most of
them were too small to be felt. Another burst of seismic
activity occurred during April–May 2009. In between the
above-mentioned bursts of seismic activity and until the
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end of 2010, there was a trickle of activity, with a small
increase towards the end of 2010. Figure 2 presents the
temporal distribution of earthquakes that occurred in
southern Lebanon in 2008–2010 in 2-week steps together
with the cumulative number of earthquakes.
For location procedure, we used a one-dimensional
velocity model with five plane parallel layers (Gitterman
et al. 2005). In general, location accuracy is a function of
the quality of recorded phases, network geometry, and
the position of the earthquake's hypocenters relative to
seismic stations. The average RMS residual in the loca-
tion procedure was approximately 0.76 s and depths of
events that occurred in the southern Lebanon region was
in the range of 0 to 16 km with average horizontal and
depth errors of ±2.0 and ±3.0 km, respectively.
We applied the HypoDD algorithm (Waldhauser and
Ellsworth 2000), which allows calculating accurate rel-
ative hypocenter locations by removing the effects of an
un-modeled velocity structure. Input data for relocation
was compiled from arrival times and an initial event
location from earthquake catalogues of networks in
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Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and Cyprus. In the relocation
procedure, maximum separation distance for events in a
cluster was fixed at 4 km, and the Vp/Vs ratio was set to
1.78. In total, we used 11,167 P-phase pairs and 9,660 S-
phase pairs for analysis that represent 73 % of all select-
ed pairs. The HypoDD relocations suggest further im-
provement in epicenter locations. The mean change in
the hypocenter locations was 0.5 km, and the maximal
horizontal shift of hypocenters was 1 km. The mean
vertical shift was 1.5 km, and the maximal change in
Fig. 3 The spatial distribution of hypocenters and temporal evolution (in time steps of 3 months) of the 2008-2010 seismic activity in
southern Lebanon
depth was 11.6 km. The hypocenter of the largest earth-
quake with magnitude Md 05.2, originally at 33.327° N,
35.4059° E at a depth of 3 km, was relocated to
33.32698° N, 35.40024° E and a depth of 3.3 km, which
is a horizontal shift of 0.54 km. The RMS residual
decreased from 0.76 to 0.3 s.
Figure 3 shows the temporal and spatial distribution
of relocated earthquakes using the HypoDD algorithm
for 2008–2010 in time steps of 3 months. We note a
clear and even north-south distribution of relocated
 Author's personal copy
hypocenters, between latitudes 33.2° N and 33.4° N
until Sept. 2008. Afterwards, the number of earthquakes
in each 3-month group decreased, and activity became
mainly concentrated between latitudes 33.2° N and
33.3° N. In the second half of 2010, activity shifted
southward to about 33.1 °N.
As a whole, swarm-like seismic activity lasted about
3 years. The rate of seismic activity was not uniform
throughout this period. The first year (2008) was
characterized by several short time windows, each
lasting up to a few days and with significant seismic
activity. The second and the third years (2009, 2010)
were characterized by relatively more continuous back-
ground seismic activity. At times, it can be described as
trickling seismicity, while at others, significant activity
was observed. Recently, Roland and McGuire (2009)
conducted an analysis of earthquake swarms in the
US and the Pacific Ocean, to obtain better under-
standing of the rate of activity and scaling param-
eters. We applied a similar analysis to four relatively
short time windows (lasting up to 100–140 h) that
contained significant seismic activity and were part of
the whole earthquake swarm in Lebanon (Figs. 2 and 4,
earthquake activities No. 1–4). For consistency, the
northward and southward hypocentral migration of seis-
mic activity were defined as positive and negative val-
ues, respectively. The seismic activity of the first burst
(No. 1 in Figs. 2 and 4.1a,b) began with the largest
earthquake of this burst (Md 4.3), which occurred on
Feb. 11, 2008, and was followed by moderate activity
that decayed within the next 20 h. Shortly after it started,
within the first 2 h, hypocenters spread bilaterally along
the north-south striking fault. Later, slow northward
hypocentral migration was observed at a rate of about
0.2 km/h (Fig. 4.1c).
Seismic activity in the second burst (No. 2 in Figs. 2
and 4.2a,b) started about 50 h prior to the largest event,
which occurred on Feb. 15, 2008, with a non-uniform
rate of activity. There is a time gap of over 14 h with no
seismic activity between the end of the first burst and the
starting time of the second burst. The rate of activity
immediately after the largest earthquake of Md 4.9 in
this burst was rather high for about 20 h and decreased
relatively fast afterwards. Shortly after the occurrence of
the largest event, within the first 3 h, activity spread out
up to 10 km south and north of the hypocenter of the
largest event, where the southern side comprised most of
the activity. Later, seismicity occurred only south of the
largest event. A complicated hypocentral migration
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pattern is shown here. Prior to the occurrence of the
largest event, the hypocenters, which were located south
of the largest event, migrated northward at a rate of
about 0.1 to 0.2 km/h. Shortly after the occurrence of
the largest event, we observed activity north and south
of the largest event. Later, there was a southward migra-
tion of hypocenters at a rate of 0.5 km/h in the first 20 h,
decreasing to about 0.2 km/h (Fig. 4.2c).
Seismic activity of the third burst (No. 3 in Figs. 2
and 4.3a, b) started with the largest earthquake (Md
3.9), which occurred on June 12, 2008, after a period
of quiescence. It was followed by intense activity in
the first 25 h, comprising two more earthquakes with a
similar magnitude of Md 3.9 and several slightly
smaller events. In the next 50 h, the rate of burst
activity decayed relatively fast. Shortly after it began,
within the first 2 h, most of the events occurred north
of the largest event at varying distances of up to 15 km
(Fig. 4.3c). We note that the whole region, a total of
15 km, was seismically active, with intense activity in
the first 5 h. Later, a northward migration of hypo-
centers at a rate of 0.1 km/h was observed.
Seismic activity of the fourth burst (No. 4 in Figs. 2
and 4.4a, b) started with the largest earthquake, which
occurred on April 17, 2009, after a period of quies-
cence, and was followed by moderate activity in the
first 5 h. Afterwards, the rate of activity decayed
quickly. Shortly after the starting of the burst, within
the first 2 h, most events occurred south of the largest
event up to 10 km away (Fig. 4.4c). We observed a
southward migration of hypocenters at a rate of
0.1 km/h.
The largest event in each burst was followed by
intense seismic activity, which lasted up to 30 h and
was followed by a decreased rate of seismic activity.
Definitely the swarm activity, in all bursts, demon-
strated complicated migration behavior. Although the
largest event in each burst was a moderate event,
consequent hypocenters in the first 3–4 h were
spread up to 10 km northward and southward rela-
tive to the hypocenter of the largest event. A few
hours later the hypocenters were more concentrated
in the direction of the migration of the seismicity of
the burst.
2.2 Seismicity rate
Recent studies of the detectability of the Israel Seismic
Network (Shapira 1991; Shapira and Gitterman 1995)
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Fig. 4 Spatial, temporal, and

magnitude distribution of
seismic bursts 1–4 (see
Fig. 2). Colors indicate rela-
tive occurrence time of each
event (solid circle) in groups
of 20 h using purple, green,
red, blue, black, and orange
(only for burst #1) for the
first, second, third, fourth,
fifth, and sixth groups of
hours, respectively. The larg-
est event is represented by a
black star. For each burst: a
Geographic locations of the
earthquakes as derived from
HypoDD algorithm (Wald-
hauser and Ellsworth 2000);
b Coda magnitude, Md, ver-
sus time in hours relative to
the largest event; c Distance
along the fault versus occur-
rence time of events preced-
ing or following the largest
event, where positive and
negative velocities (kilo-
meters per hour) or distances
indicate northward and
southward hypocenter migra-
tion or north and south hy-
pocenter locations relative to
the largest earthquake of the
burst, respectively
 Author's personal copy
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Fig. 4 (continued)

point to the fact that threshold magnitude of detection in detection of earthquakes in this region. The b value of
southern Lebanon is about 2.0 within a probability of 0.78 was calculated using a maximum likelihood meth-
90 %, which serves as a lower boundary for the od (Aki 1965; Wiechert 1980) for the time period from
 Author's personal copy
J Seismol
Fig. 5 Cumulative frequency-magnitude relationship for all
earthquakes occurring in Southern Lebanon from 2008 up to
2011. The b-value for the entire record is of 0.78
January 2008 to December 2010 (see Fig. 5). The cata-
log completeness is about 1.8, which is in good agree-
ment with the above-mentioned studies. The b value
was slightly smaller than typically b values of 0.8–0.9
found by Arieh (1967), Ben-Menahem and Aboodi
(1981), Shapira and Feldman (1987), Salamon et al.
(1996), Shapira and Hofstetter (2001) and Hofstetter
(2003), although different magnitude scales and parts
of the Dead Sea fault were used in these studies. The
relatively widespread of magnitudes of about 2.5 U in
the lower magnitudes (from 1.8 to 4.3) does not support
the determination of swarm-like seismic activity. On the
other hand, there is a significant lack of earthquakes in
the magnitude range of 4<Md <5, which may have
implications on the energy release of the whole seismic
activity. It does not support the typical mainshock-
aftershock sequence with one strong event and a large
number of smaller-magnitude earthquakes, normally
occurring along the Dead Sea fault or on one of its
splays (i.e., the Roum fault).
2.3 Decay rate
We studied the decay rate of three earthquake bursts 2
and 3 (see Figs. 2 and 6). The first and the fourth bursts
were too short to be included or the amount of data was
too small. In all cases, shortly after the occurrence of the
peak of the energy burst, the swarm rate was a few tens
of events per day decreasing relatively fast with time,
especially in the case of the fourth burst. We applied the
method of maximum likelihood following Omori's law
(1894) in order to estimate decay parameters of 1.40 and
1.19. These results are similar to the value of 1.1 found
by Utsu et al. (1995) for many sequences around the
world, to decay parameters of 1.09, 0.90, and 0.75 for
the 1996 sequence in Cyprus, and 1993 and 1995 Gulf
of Aqaba sequences based on measurements of up to
three months each time (Rabinowitz and Steinberg
1998) and decay parameter of 0.94 for the whole Gulf
of Aqaba based on measurements over a period of 1 year
(Hofstetter 2003).
3 Focal mechanisms
The number of determined focal mechanisms in this
region is rather limited due to the fact that many
earthquakes are too small for the application of wave-
form inversion and station distribution is unfavorable
for the determination of mechanisms based on P-wave
onsets. Use of waveform inversion and application of
the code of Dreger and Helmberger (1993), we deter-
mined focal mechanisms of moderate to strong earth-
quakes to obtain fault orientations as well as
information about the tectonic features of the region.
Three component waveform data from broadband sta-
tions were instrumentally corrected, integrated to dis-
placement and bandpass filtered using a fourth order
Butterworh filter with corners at 0.02 and 0.10 Hz.
The local velocity model with five layers was used to
calculate Green functions. A set of moment tensor
inversions were performed for a series of depths from
2 to 30 km. In total, 14 focal mechanisms were calcu-
lated in the study area (Fig. 7, Table 1). Figure 8 shows
waveform fits and mechanisms of the three largest
earthquakes. The focal plane solution of the
moderate-strong earthquake of Feb. 15, 2008 reveals
two nodal planes with strike, dip, and rake of 67°/88°/
179° and 157°/89°/2°, respectively, where the second
nodal plane is parallel to the NNW-SSE trend of the
Roum fault. The focal plane solution is similar to the
Global CMT solution for this event that yields a best
double-couple with the nodal planes (strike/dip/rake)
71°/69°/−167°, 336°/78°/−22° with MW 05.1. Almost
all other events appear to cluster (except No. 14) and
have solutions with a large component of strike-slip
faulting (except No. 5). The two alternatives for
 Author's personal copy
Fig. 6 The decay rate of
three earthquake bursts 2
and 3 (see also Fig. 2)
motion are right-lateral strike slip on the ENE-
WSW trending fault or left-lateral strike slip on
the NNW-SSE trending one. Based on the fact that
most epicenters are aligned along the north-south
trend (Figs. 2 and 4), we consider that the causa-
tive fault is left-lateral with a strike in the NNW-
SSE direction. Event 14 (see Table 1), which was
located about 20 km south of the cluster of earth-
quakes, exhibited a strike-slip focal mechanism.
Neither the NE-SW nor the NW-SE trending nodal
planes were in agreement with directions of the
nodal planes in the focal mechanisms of other
earthquakes to the north. If the fault plane is in
the NE-SW direction, which is parallel to a series
of faults that traverse southern Lebanon, then it
implies a right-lateral strike-slip focal mechanism.
Fig. 7 Focal mechanisms of the largest earthquakes determined
using waveform inversions (see Table 1 for details of focal
mechanisms)
J Seismol
4 Directivity
The focal mechanism of the February 15, 2008, MW 05.1
earthquake presents two alternatives of right-lateral strike
slip on a ENE-WSW trending fault or left-lateral strike
slip on a NNW-SSE trending fault (Fig. 8). In order to
determine the active fault, we explored possible effects of
earthquake directivity as the focusing of wave energy
along the fault in the direction of the rupture. Following
the procedure described by Hofstetter et al. (2008), for the
earthquake of Feb. 15, 2008, we analyzed data from six
seismic stations and recordings of peak strong motions of
three accelerometers (Fig. 9). We measured peak velocity
amplitudes at three components (Z, NS, EW) for all
stations in the S-wave window, thus calculating the max-
imal vector for each seismogram, which correlates with
the seismic energy at the observation point. Then, vector
estimates were reduced to a reference distance r of
100 km. To provide the distance correction for maximal
vectors, we used the relationship A ¼ A0 =rn , where A is
the measured velocity amplitude, and attenuation param-
eter n includes both geometrical spreading and energy
absorption. For regional earthquakes, the parameter n
was estimated as 0.3 (Hofstetter et al. 2008). The rose
diagram of maximal vectors clearly shows a non-
uniform pattern of energy distribution (Fig. 9),
with increasing energy values in the SSE-SE direc-
tions. Assuming that the direction of the rupture is
parallel to the direction of the maximal vector, then there
is very good agreement for all events in the cluster
except event 14, which is located somewhat to the south
(Fig. 7 and Table 1). It is also in good agreement with
macroseismic observations of minor damage that oc-
curred to non-structural objects in nearby sites in Israel
that are located SSE-SE of this event.
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Table 1 Focal mechanisms of the relocated events determined using regional waveform modeling

No. Date and time year/month/ Lat. °N Long. °E Depth Md MW Plane 1 Plane 2 M0 Nm
day,h:min:s km str/dip/rake str/dip/rake

1 2008/02/11,23:47:02.4 33.259 35.427 6 4.4 4.1 76/77/−162 341/72/−14 1.77e+15

2 2008/02/14,18:11:04.5 33.242 35.400 6 3.2 3.2 162/87/−15 252/75/−177 7.60e+13
3 2008/02/15,10:36:17.3 33.327 35.400 9 5.2 5.1 157/89/2 67/88/179 4.93e+16
4 2008/02/15,12:15:15.7 33.268 35.415 9 3.5 3.5 237/84/−171 146/81/−6 1.72e+14
5 2008/02/28,13:39:45.6 33.256 35.441 12 3.1 3.0 330/73/−108 200/25/−44 3.59e+13
6 2008/03/16,05:41:33.9 33.284 35.441 2 3.0 3.1 83/88/−139 351/49/−3 5.67e+13
7 2008/05/19,09:08:15.6 33.268 35.435 6 3.7 3.5 150/90/−6 24/84/−180 1.65e+14
8 2008/05/23,18:25:55.2 33.306 35.433 6 3.6 3.5 112/46/−104 312/46/−76 2.06e+14
9 2008/06/12,12:58:12.7 33.279 35.445 9 3.9 3.6 321/86/−7 52/83/−176 2.56e+14
10 2008/06/12,15:28:58.6 33.313 35.442 9 3.4 3.6 140/90/−3 230/87/−180 2.75e+14
11 2008/06/13,05:28:52.7 33.317 35.438 9 3.9 3.4 144/89/3 54/87/179 1.48e+14
12 2008/07/22,09:08:10.7 33.297 35.441 9 3.6 3.9 66/66/151 170/63/28 7.28e+14
13 2009/07/10,18:19:17.6 33.249 35.410 6 3.6 3.6 170/79/13 78/77/168 2.67e+14
14 2010/08/22,22:24:59.9 33.099 35.464 9 4.1 4.3 118/81/−11 210/79/−171 2.73e+15

The seismic activity is aligned in the north-south
direction (Figs. 1 and 3), and for the strongest earth-
quakes, we see some curved alignment (Fig.7). Most
of the focal mechanisms present two nodal planes in
the ENE-WSW and NNW-SSE directions, which are
similar to the planes on the earthquake on Feb. 15,
2008. One alternative is that the fault plane is in the
ENE-WSW direction, which is in agreement with the
on surface faults (i.e., earthquakes 2, 4, 7, 9). The
other alternative is a NNW-SSE nodal plane which is
also parallel to the trend of the Roum fault but is
slightly counterclockwise rotated relative to the direc-
tion of the seismic activity. In this case, it is possible
that the fault could be subdivided in different sectors
which were activated at different instants.
or vertical component) and broadband stations in the
case of relatively strong earthquakes. Here, we de-
scribe briefly its application to the Israel Seismic
Network following Shapira and Hofstetter (1993).
5.1 Seismic moment determination
In total, we analyzed more than 400 S-wave spectra,
with M0 values ranging from 1.20×1012 to 4.90×1016
Nm. We assumed the relationship log M0 ¼ aMd þ b
between the seismic moment M0 and the magnitude
Md. The best fit was simultaneously obtained for two
parts of the magnitude range
log M0 ¼ ð1:0  0:2ÞMd þ ð10:8  0:5Þ; 1:1  Md  3:5
log M0 ¼ ð1:5  0:3ÞMd þ ð9:0  0:5Þ; 3:5  Md  5:2

5 Seismic moment and stress drop estimation
To get a better insight of the parameters characterizing
tectonics and seismicity in this region, we examined
various scaling relationships between seismic param-
eters, such as magnitude and seismic moment. Digital
seismograms of the S-wave component were Fourier-
transformed to obtain amplitude displacement spectra.
We calculated seismic moment, M0, corner frequency,
f0, and stress drop, Δσ, based on the dislocation model
of Brune (1970, 1971), using the spectra of S-waves
recorded by short-period stations (three-components
where M0 is in Nm and the magnitude range is 1.1≤Md ≤
5.2 (see Fig. 10 and Table 1). For small magnitude earth-
quakes, magnitude coefficients in the first relation are
similar to those as obtained by Bakun (1984) and
Hanks and Boore (1984) for earthquakes in California
and by van Eck and Hofstetter (1989), Shapira and
Hofstetter (1993), Hofstetter et al. (1996), Hofstetter
and Shapira (2000), Hofstetter (2003), and Hofstetter et
al. (2008) for the Dead Sea Fault, the Carmel fault, the
Eastern Mediterranean region and the Gulf of Aqaba, with
relatively similar magnitude range. The second relation is
similar to the relations in the above-mentioned studies.
 Author's personal copy
Fig. 8 Focal mechanisms for three of largest earthquakes in
southern Lebanon. Observed and synthetic waveforms are
shown by solid and dashed lines, respectively. The parameters
of the focal mechanism and moment magnitude are shown on
5.2 Stress drop estimation
We estimated the stress drop of the earthquakes Δσ,
based on the dislocation model of Brune (1970, 1971),
using the equation Δσ ¼ 8:47M0 f03 =b 3s where f0 is the
corner frequency, and βs is the rupture velocity.
Shapira and Hofstetter (1993) provided details of the
application of the method in the case of seismograms
observed by the Israel Seismic Network (short period
or broadband). In the case of the earthquake of Feb.
15, 2008, we used broadband observations for
J Seismol
the right side; a February 11, 2008, at 23:47:02.3 (No. 1 in
Table 1); b earthquake on February 15, 2008, at 10:36:17.2 (No.
3 in Table 1); c Earthquake on Aug. 22, 2010, at 22:24:59.9 (No.
14 in Table 1)
calculating the stress drop of 2.5 MPa. It is similar to
former values obtained for earthquakes occurring in
the Dead Sea basin (van Eck and Hofstetter 1989) or
other parts of the Dead Sea fault, the Carmel fault and
the Gulf of Aqaba (Shapira and Hofstetter 1993;
Hofstetter et al. 1996; Hofstetter 2003). In general,
the stress drop is clearly increased with increasing
seismic moment (Fig. 11) up to about 17 MPa, except
for the low value of the stress drop of the earthquake
on Feb. 15, 2008. The lack of earthquakes with seis-
mic moment in the range of 1015–1016 Nm does not
 Author's personal copy
J Seismol

Fig. 9 a Location of the epi-

center (open star) on Feb. 15,
2008, and distribution of
stations (open triangle—
broadband station; solid
triangle—accelerometer) that
are used for the determination
of directivity; b Maximal
vectors as calculated for the
set of stations in a

allow the determination of a simple relationship be- and Hanks (1973), Kanamori and Anderson (1975)
tween stress drop and seismic moment (or magnitude). and for the Eastern Mediterranean region by Shapira
This has already been noted for earthquakes in and Hofstetter (1993). The corner frequency decreases
California by Hanks and Thatcher (1972), Thatcher with increasing seismic moment, as can be seen in
 Author's personal copy
Fig. 10 The relation between the seismic moment M0 and the
duration magnitude Md
Fig. 12, where for reference the solid lines represent
stress drop values of 1, 10, and 100 MPa, based on f−3
scaling.
Figures 10, 11, and 12 show scaling relations of
seismic moment, stress drop, and corner frequency of
the earthquakes. Most earthquakes have stress drop
values that are smaller than the value of the earthquake
Fig. 11 The relation between Brune's stress drop Δσ and the
seismic moment M0, for the earthquakes in this study
J Seismol
Fig. 12 The relation between the corner frequency f0 and seis-
mic moment M0, for the earthquakes in this study, where for
reference, solid lines represent stress drop values of 0.1, 1, and
10 MPa, based on f−3 scaling. Dashed line represents a relation-
ship of ∼f−3.9 scaling (see text for details)
on Feb. 15, 2008 and do not follow a constant value.
Figure 12 illustrates the relationship between the corner
frequency f0 and seismic moment M0, for southern
Lebanon. As can be seen, our observations suggest a
relationship of ∼f−3.9. Van Eck and Hofstetter (1989)
also reported such a drop, which is faster than −3. It
was interpreted by them as fmax for frequencies just
below 10 Hz. In this case, we observed the tendency
already at frequencies of 4–5 Hz, which clearly suggests
f0. Kanamori and Rivera (2004) suggested a drop that is
faster than −3, using earthquakes in a wide magnitude
range. Mayeda et al. (2007), Malagnini and Mayeda
(2008), and Hofstetter et al. (2008) presented a similar
relationship between the seismic moment and corner
frequency for the Hector Mine sequence, California,
San Giuliano sequence, Italy, and Dead Sea basin, re-
spectively, where the scaling of seismic moment and
corner frequency does not follow f−3 and is consistent
with f−4. They used this evidence to support the idea of
non-self-similarity, which means that a large earthquake
is not a simple integer multiplication of a small one.
Although the seismic activity in southern Lebanon is not
as rich as the above-mentioned sequences, our results
are in a good agreement with Mayeda et al. (2007) and
Hofstetter et al. (2008).
 Author's personal copy
J Seismol
6 Conclusions
More than 900 earthquakes have been observed in
southern Lebanon from 2008 to 2011. The earthquake
of February 15, 2008, was widely felt in the surround-
ing countries of Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria.
Several other smaller in size tremors were also felt in
neighboring regions. Prior to the event on Feb. 15,
2008, there was no special activity that could be con-
sidered as a precursor. Most earthquakes occurred
along a north-south trend, which was confirmed by
relocation using the HypoDD algorithm (Waldhauser
and Ellsworth 2000), with higher precision than the
initial location. The high rate of seismicity from 2008
to 2010, relative to the seismic activity in former
years, and its location is surprising. The majority of
focal plane solutions exhibit mainly strike-slip mech-
anisms with two nodal planes in NNW-SSE and E-W
directions. The strong earthquake on Feb. 15, 2008
exhibits a left-lateral strike-slip sense of motion on a
north-south striking fault plane. This observation is
supported by a clear directivity effect. The NE-SW
striking planes are compatible with the mapped faults
and the general trend of NNW-SSE distribution of
epicenters is compatible with the DSF and the arch-
ing/folding. The burst of seismicity possibly indicates
the weakness of the superposition of the two struc-
tures. It is possible that the recent microearthquake
activity in southern Lebanon might indicate a reacti-
vation of the old Levant continental margin. Although
no significant earthquakes have occurred in southern
Lebanon, analysis of the spatial and temporal distribu-
tion of the seismic activity shows that potentially
damaging earthquakes can occur in the study area.
Acknowledgements D. Kadosh, D. Levi, and U. Peled kept
the ISN operating. L. Feldman and B. Reich did the initial data
processing. We are grateful to S. Marco, U. Schattner, and M.
Lazar for constructive comments that improved the manuscript.
Some figures in this report were prepared using the GMT
program (Wessel and Smith 1991).
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