U.S.-Egypt Cooperative Research: Seismotectonics and Seismic Hazard and Risk Assessment Studies

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9810994El-BazDescription: This award is for support of a cooperative project by Dr. Farouk El-Baz, Director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University and Dr. Samir Riad, Professor of Geophysics at the National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSS) in Cairo, Egypt. The two plan to formulate and start a program to assess the earthquake risks in various parts of Egypt. The tasks planned include: 1) compilation of a uniform data base and catalogue of historical seismicity data, 2) production of a master seismic source model combining the data on the special-temporal distribution of seismicity from the earthquake catalogue and relevant geological input from seismotectonics, paleo-seismology, geomorphology, mapping of active faults, geodetic estimates of crustal deformation, and geodynamic modeling, 3) evaluation of the probability of occurrence of ground shaking in a given time period using several probabilistic seismotectonic approaches. This project will be a part of an IGCP Project entitled "Seismotectonics and Seismic Hazard Assessment of the Mediterranean Basin," which Dr. Riad and others have submitted and which was adopted by the Scientific Committee of the IGCP.Scope: This award will allow collaboration between Egyptian and US scientists who have significant technical background and expertise to carry out the proposed research. The US scientist has extensive experience in Egypt's geology, remote sensing data gathering and interpretation, and he also has access to international sources of data that will be used in this study. The Egyptian scientist has long experience in geologic studies in Egypt and in monitoring seismic activities in the Mediterranean region. He is working with others to correlate data from Egypt with those from other countries in the northern Mediterranean area. This research project will provide more complete and uniform data base information, catalogues and maps, will provide comparative evaluations of the different geological and geophysical data sets, and of the different methodologies in the assessment of seismic hazard, and will result in the production of software for data handling and analysis. It will also make possible transfer of technology and risk assessment methodologies between the collaborating teams. This proposal meets the INT objective of increasing US-foreign collaboration in areas that benefit both sides. This project is being supported under the US-Egypt Joint Fund Program, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to carry out these cooperative activities.