Geodetic deformation around the Mamara Sea, Turkey: Implications for earthquake deformation cycle, and earthquake hazards in the greater Istanbul Area

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Geodetic deformation around the Marmara Sea, Turkey: Implications for the earthquake deformation cycle, and earthquake hazards in the greater Istanbul area Brief Summary This research project involves monitoring and interpreting ongoing postseismic deformation for the 1999 Turkey earthquake sequence on the North Anatolian fault (NAF) and determining better the character of elastic strain accumulation in the Marmara Sea region. We will use six continuously recording GPS systems (CGPS) being retired from the UNAVCO Inc. equipment pool to augment the network of CGPS stations currently in operation around the greater Istanbul region. They will be deployed to establish a N-S profile across the 1999 Turkey earthquake surface break and along the north shore of the Marmara Sea west of Istanbul. These stations, together with continuing GPS survey observations being done by our Turkish partners (TUBITAK, Marmara Research Center) will allow us to constrain the earthquake deformation cycle for major, continental strike slip faults and will provide new constraints on the rheology of the continental lithosphere. The new information from this study will be directly relevant to estimating earthquake hazards along the NAF and similar continental strike slip faults including the San Andreas fault in California.