Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan occupies a critical position at the junction of the Greater and Lesser Caucasus mountain systems, bounded to the east by the Caspian Sea. The country's seismicity stems from the ongoing collision of the Arabian Plate with Eurasia, which at the longitude of Azerbaijan drives approximately 20–25 millimetres per year of northward motion. This collision creates compressional stresses across the entire South Caucasus region. The Lokbatan-Gobustan fold-and-thrust belt in eastern Azerbaijan, the Shamakhi-Ismayilli seismic zone in the north, and various faults in the Talysh Mountains of the south are the principal active tectonic structures. The Caspian Sea itself is a remnant of a much older oceanic basin that has been trapped by the surrounding collisional mountain belts.

Azerbaijan's most destructive historical earthquake was the 1902 Shamakhi earthquake, which had an estimated magnitude of 6.9 and caused widespread destruction in the region. Earlier events in 1667 and 1859 near Shamakhi were also devastating. The Mugan Plain and Kura Depression are underlain by deep sedimentary basins that can amplify [[seismic-wave]] energy considerably, increasing [[intensity]] at the surface relative to adjacent bedrock areas. The Absheron Peninsula near Baku contains a dense urban population and also hosts active faults. [[liquefaction]] of water-saturated deltaic and coastal sediments poses a secondary hazard in low-lying areas around Baku and along the Kura River valley during strong earthquakes.

The Kura Depression that bisects Azerbaijan from west to east is a major tectonic basin formed by the accommodation of shortening between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus ranges. This basin has accumulated great thicknesses of sediment — in places more than 10 kilometres — creating the structural traps that hold Azerbaijan's famous oil and gas fields. The folds and reverse faults that create these traps are still active and capable of generating damaging earthquakes. In the southern Talysh region, a different stress regime associated with the Alborz-Talesh mountain system creates a distinct pattern of [[fault]] activity. The [[epicenter]] distribution shows seismicity concentrated in a belt running roughly east-west across northern and central Azerbaijan, with additional clusters along the Talysh range in the south.