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Azerbaijani seismic studies center, Japanese companies close to signing agreement

28 August 2013 12:31 (UTC+04:00)
Azerbaijani seismic studies center, Japanese companies close to signing agreement

By Aynur Jafarova

The Republican Seismic Survey Center under the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) and the Japanese OYO and Shinyei Kaisha companies have reached preliminary agreement on signing a deal on mutual understanding, the center said on August 26.

Representatives of the Japanese companies visited the ANAS on August 26.

During the meeting with the Japanese representatives head of the seismic survey center Gurban Yetirmishli said currently seismology in Azerbaijan is at the stage of development. The country has undertaken important steps to provide seismic stations in Azerbaijan with modern and new equipment.

According to Yetirmishli, currently 35 telemetric seismic stations of the center operate on the ground while three seismic stations operate at the sea bottom. The seismic survey center has also installed 24 GPS stations and considers launching one GPS station over a well at the depth of 8,000 meters that is located in the Saatli region of Azerbaijan.

The GPS stations will be launched to study horizontal movements of the earth crust. They will be included in the general system of space geodesy with satellite reception of connection.

Currently the seismic survey center is working to study horizontal motions of the earth crust. The GPS stations allow determining displacement of the earth crust caused by earthquakes in the region, to measure the weakest fluctuations with high precision. All of the information about the measurements is received by the calculating center and further used for forecasting zones with high seismic activity.

The Republican Seismic Survey Center said on July 29 that experts of the center will be trained on the project for the development of "a risk map of seismic microzoning of Baku".

According to the center, cooperation in the framework of the project is envisaged with OYO and Shinyei Kaisha, which have studied the work of the monitoring center and expressed their interest in cooperation with the entity.

Microzoning provides mapping of all areas of the city of Baku and surrounding areas, where seismic activity will be measured on a point scale and the impact of water and gas supply on the infrastructure considered. The large-scale project requires a comprehensive approach, and a lot of equipment will be used in the course of its implementation.

Japan has extensive experience in the implementation of such projects, and the country has successfully implemented similar projects in Istanbul, Tehran and Tashkent.

The project, whose implementation in Azerbaijan is being considered, is labor-intensive and its realization will take two years.

Negotiations on the project, which is planned to be financed by Japan, have been conducted at the level of the governments of Azerbaijan and Japan.

Seismology is the study of earthquakes. A quake, one of the catastrophic natural disasters of the Earth, not only causes devastating destruction, but also claims hundreds and thousands of lives. According to estimates, earthquakes occurred 831 times in the period 1965-2010.

Azerbaijan and its part of the Caucasus Mountains are located at the junction of the South Arabic and North Eurasian tectonic plates. These plates are always in movement, which causes earthquakes in the country's territory.

Azerbaijan pays special attention to the development of seismic experience and installation of seismic stations. The first seismic station in Azerbaijan was established in 1902 in Baku.

One of the innovations introduced in Azerbaijan in the area of early recognition and possible warning on earthquakes is the RNM ASP (the station of robust noise monitoring of anomalous seismic processes) seismoacoustic stations.

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