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Dating of active normal fault scarps in the Büyük Menderes Graben (western Anatolia) and its implications for seismic history


Mozafari, Nasim; Tikhomirov, Dmitry; Sumer, Ökmen; Özkaymak, Çağlar; Uzel, Bora; Yeşilyurt, Serdar; Ivy-Ochs, Susan; Vockenhuber, Christof; Sözbilir, Hasan; Akçar, Naki (2019). Dating of active normal fault scarps in the Büyük Menderes Graben (western Anatolia) and its implications for seismic history. Quaternary Science Reviews, 220:111-123.

Abstract

Fault scarps, if well-preserved, include precise evidence of past earthquakes. Using cosmogenic 36Cl dating, the timing and slip of paleoearthquakes are recoverable beyond the available earthquake archives. One of the appropriate seismically active regions to apply 36Cl dating is western Anatolia, where its deformation is influenced by an N-S extensional regime, where the horst-graben structures are characterized by normal faults.
We have studied well-preserved (meta-) carbonates Kalafat and Yavansu fault scarps in the westernmost part of the Büyük Menderes Graben within western Anatolia. The distribution of cosmogenic 36Cl against height along the fault surfaces indicates that faults experienced minimum three high paleoseismically active phases. The recovered ages of seismic events are ca. 15, 8.4, and 3.6 ka, with vertical components of slip of ca. 0.7, 0.9 and 3.1 m, respectively, for the Kalafat Fault, and ca. 7.9, 3.4, and 2.0 ka with vertical components of slip of ca. 0.6, 3.5, and 2.6 m, respectively, for the Yavansu Fault. The recurrence interval of active periods is generally becoming shortened over time. The ruptures mostly occurred as clustered earthquakes close in time with magnitudes of 6.5–7.1. The vertical slip rates of >0.1, 0.1, and 1.5 mm/yr, and >0.1, 0.8, and 1.9 mm/yr were calculated for the Kalafat and Yavansu faults, respectively. Long-term slip rates were also estimated about 1.0 and 0.6 mm/yr for the Kalafat and Yavansu faults, respectively. Considering the fault lengths, they are capable of producing earthquakes with magnitudes larger than 6.5, and are seismogenic faults.

Abstract

Fault scarps, if well-preserved, include precise evidence of past earthquakes. Using cosmogenic 36Cl dating, the timing and slip of paleoearthquakes are recoverable beyond the available earthquake archives. One of the appropriate seismically active regions to apply 36Cl dating is western Anatolia, where its deformation is influenced by an N-S extensional regime, where the horst-graben structures are characterized by normal faults.
We have studied well-preserved (meta-) carbonates Kalafat and Yavansu fault scarps in the westernmost part of the Büyük Menderes Graben within western Anatolia. The distribution of cosmogenic 36Cl against height along the fault surfaces indicates that faults experienced minimum three high paleoseismically active phases. The recovered ages of seismic events are ca. 15, 8.4, and 3.6 ka, with vertical components of slip of ca. 0.7, 0.9 and 3.1 m, respectively, for the Kalafat Fault, and ca. 7.9, 3.4, and 2.0 ka with vertical components of slip of ca. 0.6, 3.5, and 2.6 m, respectively, for the Yavansu Fault. The recurrence interval of active periods is generally becoming shortened over time. The ruptures mostly occurred as clustered earthquakes close in time with magnitudes of 6.5–7.1. The vertical slip rates of >0.1, 0.1, and 1.5 mm/yr, and >0.1, 0.8, and 1.9 mm/yr were calculated for the Kalafat and Yavansu faults, respectively. Long-term slip rates were also estimated about 1.0 and 0.6 mm/yr for the Kalafat and Yavansu faults, respectively. Considering the fault lengths, they are capable of producing earthquakes with magnitudes larger than 6.5, and are seismogenic faults.

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Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:07 Faculty of Science > Institute of Geography
Dewey Decimal Classification:910 Geography & travel
Scopus Subject Areas:Physical Sciences > Global and Planetary Change
Life Sciences > Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Social Sciences & Humanities > Archeology (arts and humanities)
Social Sciences & Humanities > Archeology
Physical Sciences > Geology
Uncontrolled Keywords:Archaeology, Archaeology, Global and Planetary Change, Geology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Language:English
Date:31 July 2019
Deposited On:06 Jan 2020 11:31
Last Modified:22 Sep 2023 01:48
Publisher:Elsevier
ISSN:0277-3791
OA Status:Hybrid
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.07.002
  • Content: Published Version
  • Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)