The 2014 Kefalonia earthquake sequence started on 26 January with the first main shock (M w 6.1) and aftershock activity extending over 35 km, much longer than expected from the causative fault segment. The second main shock (M w 6.0) occurred on 3 February on an adjacent fault segment, where the aftershock distribution was remarkably sparse, evidently encouraged by stress transfer of the first main shock. The aftershocks from the regional catalog were relocated using a 7-layer velocity model and station residuals, and their distribution evidenced two adjacent fault segments striking almost N-S and dipping to the east, in full agreement with the centroid moment tensor solutions, constituting segments of the Kefalonia Transform Fault (KTF). The KTF is bounded to the north by oblique parallel smaller fault segments, linking KTF with its northward continuation, the Lefkada Fault.

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Western Turkey has a long history of destructive earthquakes that are responsible for the death of thousands of people and which caused devastating damage to the existing infrastructures, and cultural and historical monuments. The recent earthquakes of Izmit (Kocaeli) on 17 August, 1999 (M w = 7.4) and Düzce (M w = 7.2) on 12 November, 1999, which occurred in the neighboring fault segments along the North Anatolian Fault (NAF), were catastrophic ones for the Marmara region and surroundings in NW Turkey. Stress transfer between the two adjacent fault segments successfully explained the temporal proximity of these events. Similar evidence is also provided from recent studies dealing with successive strong events occurrence along the NAF and parts of the Aegean Sea; in that changes in the stress field due to the coseismic displacement of the stronger events influence the occurrence of the next events of comparable size by advancing their occurrence time and delimiting their occurrence place. In the present study the evolution of the stress field since the beginning of the twentieth century in the territory of the eastern Aegean Sea and western Turkey is examined, in an attempt to test whether the history of cumulative changes in stress can explain the spatial and temporal occurrence patterns of large earthquakes in this area. Coulomb stress changes are calculated assuming that earthquakes can be modeled as static dislocations in elastic half space, taking into account both the coseismic slip in large (M C 6.5) earthquakes and the slow tectonic stress buildup along the major fault segments. The stress change calculations were performed for strike-slip and normal faults. In each stage of the evolutionary model the stress field is calculated according to the strike, dip, and rake angles of the next large event, whose triggering is inspected, and the possible sites for future strong earthquakes can be assessed. A new insight on the evaluation of future seismic hazards is given by translating the calculated stress changes into earthquake probability using an earthquake nucleation constitutive relation, which includes permanent and transient effects of the sudden stress changes.

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On 3 March 2021, the Mw6.3 Tyrnavos earthquake shook much of the Thessalia region, leading to extensive damage in many small towns and villages in the activated area. The first main shock was followed in the next day, on 4th of March 2021, by an “equivalent” main shock with Mw6.0 in the adjacent fault segment. These are the largest earthquakes to strike the northeastern part of Thessalia since the M6.3, 1941 Larissa earthquake. The main shocks triggered extensive liquefaction mainly along the banks of the Titarisios tributary where alluvial flood deposits most probably amplified the ground motions. Our seismic monitoring efforts, with the use of recordings of the regional seismological network along with a dense local network that was installed three days after the seismic excitation initiation, led to the improved understanding the geometry and kinematics of the activated faults. The aftershocks form a north–northwest–trending, east–northeast–dipping, ~40 km long distribution, encompassing the two main ruptures along with minor activated structures, consistent with the rupture length estimated from analysis of regional waveform data and InSAR modeling. The first rupture was expanded bilaterally, the second main shock nucleated at its northern tip, where from this second rupture propagated unilaterally to the north–northwest. The focal mechanisms of the two main shocks support an almost pure normal faulting, similar to the aftershocks fault plane solution determined in this study. The strong ground motion of the March 3 main shock was computed with a stochastic simulation of finite fault model. Coseismic displacements that were detected using a dense GPS / GNSS network of five permanent stations located the Thessaly region, have shown an NNE–SSW extension as expected from the nature and location of the causative fault. Coulomb stress changes due to the coseismic slip of the first main shock, revealed that the hypocentral region of the second main shock was brought closer to failure by more than 10 bars.