Bahadır Aktuğ

Surface creep on the North Anatolian Fault at Ismetpasa, Turkey, 1944‐2016

We re-evaluate the 72 year history of surface slip on the North Anatolian Fault at Ismetpasa since the Mw = 7.4 1944 Bolu/Gerede earthquake. A revised analysis of published observations suggests that days after the earthquake the fault had been offset by 3.7 m, and 6 years later by an additional 0.74 m. Creep was first recognized on the fault in 1969 as a 0.13 m offset of a wall constructed in 1957 that now (2016) has been offset by 0.52 m. A carbon-rod creep-meter operated across the fault in the past two years confirms results from an invar-wire creep-meter operated 1982-1991 that surface slip is episodic. Months of fault inactivity are interrupted by slow slip (≤10 µm/day) or multiple creep events with cumulative amplitudes of 2-10 mm, durations of several weeks, and with slip-rates briefly exceeding >2.5 mm/hour. Creep events accommodate 80% of the surface slip and individually release ≈ 10-6 shear-strain on the flanks of the uppermost 3-7 km of the fault. GPS and InSAR methods yield a current fault slip rate of 7.6 ± 1 mm/yr suggesting that creep-meters incompletely sample the full width of the surface shear zone. The slip rate has slowed from >10 mm/yr in 1969 to 6.1 mm/year at present, 4.65 mm/yr of which appears to be due to steady interseismic creep driven by plate boundary stressing rates. We calculate that a further 1 m of aseismic surface slip will precede the next major earthquake on the fault assuming a ≈ 260 year mainshock recurrence interval on this segment.

Slip distribution and source parameters of the 20 July 2017 Bodrum-Kos earthquake (Mw6.6) from GPS observations

Abstract Greek-Turkish boundary near the cities Kos and Bodrum has been shaken on July 20, 2017 by a Mw6.6 earthquake. The mainshock is located offshore and did not generate an on-land surface rupture. Analyzing pre- and post-earthquake continuous/survey-type static GPS observations, we investigated co-seismic surface displacements at 20 sites to characterize source parameters and slip-distribution of the mainshock. Fault plane solutions as well as co-seismic slip distribution have been acquired through the inversion of co-seismic GPS displacements modeling the event as elastic dislocations in a half space. Fault plane solution shows a southward dipping normal-type fault segment extending a depth down to ~12 km, which remains within the brittle upper crust. Results from the distributed slip inversion show that the mainshock activated a ~65 km fault section, which has three high slip patches, namely western, central and eastern patches, where the coseismic slips reach up to 13, 26, and 5 cm, respectively. This slip pattern indicates that the pre-earthquake coupling, which is storing the slip deficit, occurred on these three patches.

Seismic hazard assessment of the central North Anatolian Fault (Turkey) from GPS-derived strain rates and b-values

ABSTRACT The North Anatolian Fault (NAF) represents one of the most seismically active transform zones on Earth. It is characterized by high rates of crustal deformation that generate destructive earthquakes. These rates are induced by convergence of the northward-migrating Arabian and African plates with respect to the stable Eurasian plate. Therefore, the NAF represents a natural earthquake laboratory with a wide range of earthquake sizes (M ≤ 7.9) to investigate by using interdisciplinary approaches (seismological, magnetism, geological, gravitational, and geodetic studies). In this study, we compare the results of an analysis of b-values from seismicity and GPS (Global Positioning System) measurements of the strain rate to understand their coupling in terms of faulting and earthquake hazard implications. In particular, this comparison allows investigation of the spatial correlation between b-value and strain rate maps and is thus able to locate fault segments that have a high potential of generating large earthquake(s). b-Values range from 0.5 to 1.5 along the central NAF. The maximum principal strain rates are positive (tensile), and the minimum principal strain rates are negative (compressive). The surface strain is positive, showing that tensile strain is predominant in areas with high strain rates, consistent with the trend of the corresponding stresses.