SUMMARY
The November 12, 2017 Northern Iraq/Western Iran earthquake occurred along the northwestern part the Zagros Thrust Zone near the political boundary between Iraq and Iran and caused hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries and building damages and collapses, especially in Kermanshah province of Iran. Although there have been no M≥7.0 earthquake since 1900, destructive earthquakes with comparable magnitude such as 1058 Mosul, 1263 Mardin, 1572 Halepçe, 1666 Ninova earthquakes, shook the source region in the historical period. Finite-fault inversion of the teleseismic broadband waveforms of the earthquake has indicated that the rupture covers a fault area of 50 km by 15 km and confined to depths below 20 km with slip as high as 9 m at hypocentral area. The rupture was mainly toward south (or toward Iran) providing plausible explanation for damage distribution. The earthquake released a seismic moment of 1.05 x 1020 Nt m (MW≈7.3). It is suggested that the earthquake was due to displacement along the detachment surface between the sedimentary cover and underlying basement. The slip model further indicates that though the northern part of the faulting dominantly thrusting the southern half is dominantly dextral.
