Estimating Slip Rates of Faults around Bam and their Application in Evaluation of Earthquake Hazard

The Iranian plateau lies between the Arabian and Eurasian plates and accommodates approximately 22 mm/yr of N-S shortening. About 9 mm/y of this shortening is taken up by folding and thrusting in the Zagros while the remaining 13 mm/yr is taken up in the Alborz and Kopeh-Dagh. The Central Iran block is relatively stable and thus moves to the north with an average velocity of about 13 mm/y. As the stable Afghanistan block lies to the east, the northward motion of Central Iran produces a right-lateral shear in eastern Iran, which is distributed mainly over a few major faults to the west (~5 mm/yr) and east (~ 8 mm/yr) of the Lut desert. Limited information is available about the slip rates of individual faults in eastern Iran; therefore in this study we try to combine all geological, geodetic and available Quaternary dating results to estimate the fault slip rates and distribution of active deformation in eastern Iran. Finally, we report the results from OSL dating of samples taken from uplifted plain deposits near the south end of the Bam-Baravat fault. These results show that this fault is growing in the vertical direction with at a rate of ~ 0.5 mmy-1. Considering geometric relation between the Bam-Baravat and the south Bam earthquake fault, we estimate a slip rate of about 2 mm/y for the south Bam earthquake fault.