Source characterizations of the New Cairo earthquake, Egypt

Abstract The New Cairo region was hit by a moderate size earthquake (Mw = 4.18) on midday Monday, 31st December 2018 that was felt throughout the greater Cairo region without any reported damage. The source mechanism solution and moment tensor inversion exhibit a normal fault with a minor strike-slip component. The NW-fault plane is the preferred rupture plane consistent with the geological and tectonic settings of the region. The dynamic source parameters have calculated, assuming a simplified circular source model, by using displacement spectra. The obtained source parameters are included average seismic moment is 2.41E+15 N-m, rupture radius of 0.46 Km, stress drop is 10.9 MPa, relative displacement is 0.012 cm, and energy releases are 1.2E+18 Erg. According to “Scholz” (1990), the studied earthquake might be considered as an intraplate type-(II) earthquake that related to plate boundaries. In the present study, the thermal infrared data is used to derive Land Surface Temperature (LST) as a precursory analysis for this earthquake. The results indicated that there was a correlation between LST with precursor seismic activity before the time of the New Cairo earthquake occurrence.