East Africa Rift Monitor

We present the up-to-date seismicity associated with the East Africa Rift system as a series of space-time sections. The aim is to reveal the hidden orders and to facilitate prompt interpretation. The earthquake data is obtained from the USGS database every minute. With new earthquakes the figures and maps are updated every hour; otherwise, they are regenerated every four hours. The following points should be considered regarding the images.

  1. There are 8 figures showing time-space sections of seismicity for different periods. Earthquakes are projected on the line segments that represent the East Africa Rift zone.
  2. The yellow line segments, ‘S-N’, on the maps show the section. Earthquakes within a 50 km range are projected in the section.
  3. For each figure X, there are 3 associated illustrations with a corresponding period. Xa shows the seismicity for the whole region, while Xb displays the events in the window around the section. Figure Xc shows the depth distribution of events along the section. Their links are given below each figure.
  4. The thick red line segments, labeled A, on the maps and also along the right axis of each figure represent a seismic gap. Several 7+ earthquakes may fill the gap.
  5. The line segments do not necessarily indicate the fault zones.
Elements and details that may become unrecognizable due to dense seismicity or background color of the maps.
Click to open map 1a, map 1b or figure 1c
Click to open map 2a, map 2b or figure 2c
Click to open map 3a, map 3b or figure 3c
Click to open map 4a, map 4b or figure 4c
Click to open map 5a, map 5b or figure 5c
Click to open map 6a, map 6b or figure 6c
Click to open map 7a, map 7b or figure 7c
Click to open map 8a, map 8b or figure 8c

Acknowledgment

The earthquake data for this project is downloaded from the website of the US Geological Survey (USGS). The figures are produced by using the “Generic Mapping Tool” (GMT) and we thank the developers of the software (Wessel et al., 2013).

References

  • Wessel P, Smith WH, Scharroo R, Luis J, Wobbe F. Generic mapping tools: improved version released. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union. 2013;94:409–410.