Investigation of strain accumulation along Tuzla fault - western Turkey

Authors: EMRE HAVAZLI, HALUK ÖZENER

Abstract: The Aegean region is one of the most seismically active regions in Turkey and comprises the Hellenic Arc, Greece, and Western Turkey. The Tuzla Fault, which lies between the town of Menderes and Cape Doğanbey, is one of the major seismic threats in western Turkey due to its seismic potential to generate a major earthquake (M 6, near Doğanbey Cape in 1992) and proximity to the city of İzmir which sustained damage due to the earthquake that occurred in the Aegean Sea on October 30th, 2020. In order to estimate strain rates and seismic potential around the Tuzla Fault, five global positioning system (GPS) surveys were carried out between 2009 and 2012. Estimated GPS velocities in the study area exceed 20 mm/year, which is in line with previous studies. We use two different approaches to calculate the strain accumulation on and around the Tuzla Fault. The first method adopts forming triangles using the GPS sites as corners and calculating strain rates within those triangles. The second method adopts a bicubic interpolation approach described by Holt and Haines, 1993. Maximum values of strain accumulation were found to reach up to 200 nanostrain/year.

Keywords: Tuzla Fault-İzmir, Aegean tectonics, strain rate, global positioning system GPS, velocity field

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