Source Parameters of the ML 3.8 Earthquake on January 20, 2000 near Meckenheim, Germany

In the early morning hours on January 20,2000 at 03:03:17 (UTC) an M_L = 3.8earthquake occurred east of the city ofMeckenheim. It awakened many people in theMeckenheim-Bonn-Siegburg area. At least 200people called the police or fire brigade inBonn. The earthquake was felt as far asLimburg (Westerwald) and east Belgium. Themaximum intensity (EMS) in theMeckenheim-Adendorf area was 5. Theinstrumental epicenter was located at50.60^° N latitude and 7.08^° Elongitude. Source depth was 9.5 km. Localmagnitude M_L was 3.8 ± 0.3 andseismic moment was 1.86*10¹⁴ Nm,corresponding to a momentmagnitude M_W of 3.4± 0.2.Following the Brune model, the sourceradius was 0.45 km with an averagedislocation of 1.0 cm and a 0.8 MPa stressdrop. The source mechanism from a firstmotion fault plane solution shows a normalfault mechanism with a significant strikeslip contribution. Trend and plunge of themajor and minor principal axes P/T are168^°/54^° and275^°/12^°, respectively. Aninversion of the moment tensor fromamplitudes of direct waves reveals a doublecouple mechanism with a smaller strike slipcontribution than the first motion faultplane solution, but also shows asignificant 16% non-double couplecomponent of the total moment. Theintensity epicenter was determined by agrid search algorithm and was found to be14 km east from the instrumental epicenter.The macroseismic magnitude was 3.6.