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Volume :29 Issue : 2 2002
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The 1993 M4.7 Kuwait earthquake: Induced by the burning of the oil fields
Auther : FIRYAL BOU-RABEE* AND AMOS NUR**
* Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Kuwait University. Kuwait
** Department of Geophysics. Stanford University. USA.
ABSTRACT
A M4.7 earthquake in otherwise seismically inactive Kuwait occurred under the cluster of the countrys most productive oil field on June 2, 1993 - only 25 months after 539 out of the regions 770 producing oil wells were set on fire or left gushing by the invading Iraqi armed forces. It is probable that this solitary earthquake was caused not by tectonic forces but by rapid and regional depletion of pore pressure, which can induce shear stress sufficient to cause massive subsurface rock failure.
Keywords: Earthquake. Induced Earthquake, Kuwait, oil Gushing