The 2002 Kalehe earthquake occurred on October 24 at 06:08 UTC. This earthquake had a magnitude 6.2, and the epicenter was located in

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

, near

Lake Kivu Lake Kivu is one of the African Great Lakes. It lies on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and is in the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift. Lake Kivu empties into the Ruzizi River, which ...

. Two people were reported dead. Building damage was reported in

Goma Goma is the capital of North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located on the northern shore of Lake Kivu, next to the Rwandan city of Gisenyi. The lake and the two cities are in the Albertine Rift, the weste ...

, Lwiro, Kalehe, and Mugeri. The seismicity, volcanism, and uplift in the basin of Lake Kivu delimits the rift of a tectonic plate. Lake Kivu belongs to the western branch of the East African Rift System (EARS). The western branch is usually divided into several segments, and Lake Kivu belongs to the northern segment.Yang, Zhaohui & Chen, Wang-Ping. (2010)
Earthquakes along the East African Rift System: A multiscale, system-wide perspective.
Journal of Geophysical Research. 115. .

Tectonic setting

Lake Kivu is formed in an active

rift In geology, a rift is a linear zone where the lithosphere is being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics. Typical rift features are a central linear downfaulted depression, called a graben, or more commonly a half-grabe ...

basin that is part of the western branch of the

East African Rift System East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...

. The basin is a

half-graben A half-graben is a geological structure bounded by a fault along one side of its boundaries, unlike a full graben where a depressed block of land is bordered by parallel faults. Rift and fault structure A rift is a region where the lithosphere ...

, with the main controlling fault on the western side. The other margin is mainly unfaulted and flexural in type. The active extension is WNW–ESE trending, perpendicular to the main border fault. The displacement rate across this part of the EARS rift system is in the range 3–5 mm per year. Most earthquakes in the rift system are

normal Normal(s) or The Normal(s) may refer to: Film and television * ''Normal'' (2003 film), starring Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson * ''Normal'' (2007 film), starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Kevin Zegers, Callum Keith Rennie, and Andrew Airlie * ''Norma ...

in type.

Earthquake

The earthquake had a

focal mechanism The focal mechanism of an earthquake describes the deformation in the source region that generates the seismic waves. In the case of a fault-related event it refers to the orientation of the fault plane that slipped and the slip vector and is ...

consistent with normal faulting and a hypocentral depth of 11.0 km. These observations have been combined with the analysis of

InSAR Interferometric synthetic aperture radar, abbreviated InSAR (or deprecated IfSAR), is a radar technique used in geodesy and remote sensing. This geodetic method uses two or more synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images to generate maps of surface defo ...

data and the known geology of the area to conclude that the earthquake was a result of movement on one of the east- dipping rift border faults. The earthquake was preceded by an eruption in the Nyiragongo volcanic area to the north of Lake Kivu, in January 2002. This is interpreted to be a diking event. Analysis of the effect of the diking on the stress field to the south suggests that faulting like that seen in the earthquake may have been promoted by this event.

References

External links

* {{Earthquakes in Africa 2002 disasters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Earthquakes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Kalehe 2002 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Tectonic setting

Earthquake

See also

References

External links