Baptiste Gombert, Zacharie Duputel, Elham Shabani, Luis Rivera, Romain Jolivet, James Hollingsworth

On November 12th 2017, a MW =7.3 earthquake struck near the Iranian town of Ezgeleh, close to the Iran-Iraq border. This event was located within the Zagros fold and thrust belt which delimits the continental collision between the Arabian and Eurasian Plates. Despite a high seismic risk, the seismogenic behaviour of the complex network of active faults is not well documented in this area due to the long recurrence interval of large earthquakes. In this study, we jointly invert InSAR and near-field strong-motions to infer the geometry of a flat fault and a kinematic slip model of the rupture. The kinematic slip distribution reveals an impulsive seismic source with a strong southward rupture directivity, consistent with significant damage South of the epicenter. We also show that the slip direction does not match plate convergence, implying that some of the accumulated strain must be partitioned onto other faults.