Seismicity and earthquake hazard assessment in North of Kerman [By Kijko & Sllevoll (1992) method]

. Kouhbanan fault system in south of central Iran is one of the most active and seismic faults, has length of nearly 200km and seismic history from B.C to the present. Epicenter of seismic activities for this fault situated often near fault zone or on the Kouhbanan fault zone branches and other attached faults. Identify of ruptured and non-ruptured segments can clear the way to finding the areas that have the potential for creating earthquake. Field observation and library data were used for this purpose. According to the spatiotemporal distribution of historical and instrumental earthquakes, may be concluded, the most earthquakes are located where the fault branches or in its bend locations. Earthquake occurred in studied region, often known with absence of high magnitude earthquakes (M≥ 6.5). Interesting point is that in the period of about 160 years ago (Earthquake record time span) along of active faults, especially Kouhbanan fault zone, an area that is less a re-ruptured or be consecutive or earthquake epicenters are few. For earthquake risk assessment, we use Kijko& Sllevoll (1992) method, which show that the earthquake risk and seismicity rate is higher from other regions and earthquake have higher magnitude and less recurrence time. According to the obtained results, for earthquakes (M≥ 7) results should be used with caution.