Geophysical processes and biosphere: article

Аnnotation: Archaeological excavations at the Raevskoe settlement (NW Caucasus) revealed numerous traces of seismic deformations in building structures erected in ancient times. Although only the foundation parts of buildings and the lower rows of masonry have been preserved, in the archaeological excavations, tilts and collapses, shifts and rotation, as well as ruptures of ancient building structures, are clearly distinguished. The most important deformations we have identified is the horizontal sublatitudinal displacement of the eastern city wall by 1.4 m near the South Tower. The reason for this dis-placement was the movement along the seismogenic rupture – the dextral strike-slip, which came to the surface within the boundaries of the settlement at the turn of the 2nd–1st centuries BC as a re-sult of an earthquake with М = 6.8–7.2. The second strong earthquake occurred in the middle of the 1st century AD. In the buildings of Roman age, destroyed by the second earthquake, in addition to seismo-inertial deformations, there are also small – submeridional horizontal ruptures in the foundation parts of the masonry – right-handed shifts with an amplitude of a few tens of centimeters. The cause of the second seismic event could also be movements along a seismogenic fault, which is expressed by an erosion-tectonic scarp with a steepness of up to 40° in the left side of the river valley. Maskaga and traced through the settlement. The obtained data can be used to correct the seismotectonic model and clarify the seismic hazard of the Northwestern Caucasus.