Abstract
During continental rifting the interaction between faulting and magmatic intrusions is not well understood. Using InSAR and seismicity, we show that a similar to 0.06 km(3) dike was intruded along the Dallol segment, Ethiopia and was accompanied by a M-W 5.5 earthquake and associated fault slip along the western flank of the rift. The intrusion was fed by a previously unidentified magma chamber under Dallol. The total seismic moment release was similar to 2.3 x 10(17) Nm, similar to 10% of the geodetic moment. This is a higher proportion than during the 2005-2009 Dabbahu rifting episode, which ranged between 1-4% of the geodetic moment. A larger component of faulting occurs at Dallol than at Dabbahu segment, a feature we interpret to be related to the proximity (10 km) of the Dallol segment to the rift margin, where well-developed faults facilitate slip. Citation: Nobile, A., C. Pagli, D. Keir, T. J. Wright, A. Ayele, J. Ruch, and V. Acocella (2012), Dike-fault interaction during the 2004 Dallol intrusion at the northern edge of the Erta Ale Ridge (Afar, Ethiopia), Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L19305, doi:10.1029/2012GL053152.