Crustal deformation in northwestern Arabia from GPS measurements in Syria: Slow slip rate along the northern Dead Sea Fault

Alchalbi, A.; Daoud, Mohamad; Gomez, Francisco; McClusky, S.; Reilinger, Robert; Romeyeh, Mohamad Abu; Alsouod, Adham; Yassminh, Rayan; Ballani, Basel; Darawcheh, Ryad; Sbeinati, R.; Radwan, Y.; Masri, Riad Al; Bayerly, M.; Ghazzi, Riad Al; Barazangi, Muawia

doi:10.1111/j.1365-246x.2009.04431.x

Cited by 80 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…The component of left-lateral slip on the LTFZ is thus the principal reason why the slip rate on the northern DSFZ is rather less than that on the southern DSFZ (cf. Alchalbi et al, 2010;ArRajehi et al, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1 are instead summarized in Table 1. In the past few years a multiplicity of interpretations of the regional kinematics on the basis of GPS data have indeed been published (e.g., Alchalbi et al, 2010;ArRajehi et al, 2010;Sadeh et al, 2012;Mahmoud et al, 2013;Palano et al, 2013). The differences between these interpretations indicate the limitations of this technique, especially since it has difficulty resolving relative motions of <~1 mm a -1 and many active faults are slipping at rates rather less than this (e.g., Westaway, 2004).…”

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confidence: 99%

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The kinematics of central-southern Turkey and northwest Syria revisited

et al. 2014

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Central-southern Turkey, NW Syria, and adjacent offshore areas in the NE Mediterranean region form the boundary zone between the Turkish, African and Arabian plates. A great deal of new information has emerged in recent years regarding senses and rates of active crustal deformation in this region, but this material has not hitherto been well integrated, so the interpretations of key localities by different teams remain contradictory. We have reviewed and synthesized this evidence, combining it with new investigations targeted at key areas of uncertainty. This work has led to the inference of previously unrecognized active faults and has clarified the roles of other structures within the framework of plate motions provided by GPS studies. Roughly one third of the relative motion between the Turkish and Arabian plates is accommodated on the Misis-Kyrenia Fault Zone, which links to the study region from the Kyrenia mountain range of northern Cyprus. Much of this motion passes NNE then eastward around the northern limit of the Amanos Mountains, as previously thought, but some of it splays northeastward to link into newly-recognised normal faulting within the Amanos Mountains. The remaining two thirds of the relative motion is accommodated along the Karasu Valley; some of this component steps leftward across the Amik Basin before passing southward onto the northern Dead Sea Fault Zone (DSFZ) but much of it continues southwestward, past the city of Antakya, then into offshore structures, ultimately linking Central-southern Turkey and northwest Syria; Page 2; 30/12/2013 to the subduction zone bounding the Turkish and African plates to the southwest of Cyprus.However, some of this offshore motion continues southward, west of the Syrian coast, before linking onshore into the southern DSFZ; this component of the relative motion is indeed the main reason why the slip rate on the northern DSFZ, measured geodetically, is so much lower than that on its southern counterpart. In some parts of this region, notably in the Karasu Valley, it is now clear how the expected relative plate motion has been accommodated on active faults during much of the Quaternary: rather than constant slip rates on individual faults, quite complex changes in the partitioning of this motion on timescales of hundreds of thousands of years are indicated. However, in other parts of the region it remains unclear whether additional major active faults remain unrecognised or whether significant relative motions are accommodated by distributed deformation or on the many smaller-scale structures present. Highlights

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

The kinematics of central-southern Turkey and northwest Syria revisited

et al. 2014

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“…The block model is derived from sites that are generally more than 50 km from plate boundaries (shown with purple error ellipses for Arabia and identified in Data Set S1 for other plates) and does not include estimates of strain accumulation (see text for discussion). The small residuals indicate that, except for elastic strains near plate boundaries and possible shortening across the Palmyride fold-thrust belt [Alchalbi et al, 2010], the Arabian plate is not deforming internally at the present level of GPS uncertainties (∼1 mm/yr). Format as in Figure 1.…”

Section: Gps Data Analysis and Euler Vector Determinationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geodetic constraints on present‐day motion of the Arabian Plate: Implications for Red Sea and Gulf of Aden rifting

ArRajehi

McClusky²,

Reilinger³

et al. 2010

Tectonics

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146

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Five years of continuously recording GPS observations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia together with new continuous and survey‐mode GPS observations broadly distributed across the Arabian Peninsula provide the basis for substantially improved estimates of present‐day motion and internal deformation of the Arabian plate. We derive the following relative, geodetic Euler vectors (latitude (°N), longitude (°E), rate (°/Myr, counterclockwise)) for Arabia‐Nubia (31.7 ± 0.2, 24.6 ± 0.3, 0.37 ± 0.01), Arabia‐Somalia (22.0 ± 0.5, 26.2 ± 0.5, 0.40 ± 0.01), Arabia‐India (18.0 ± 3.8, 87.6 ± 3.3, 0.07 ± 0.01), Arabia‐Sinai (35.7 ± 0.8, 17.1 ± 5.0, 0.15 ± 0.04), and Arabia‐Eurasia (27.5 ± 0.1, 17.6 ± 0.3, 0.404 ± 0.004). We use these Euler vectors to estimate present‐day stability of the Arabian plate, the rate and direction of extension across the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and slip rates along the southern Dead Sea fault south of the Lebanon restraining bend (4.5–4.7 ± 0.2 mm/yr, left lateral; 0.8–1.1 ± 0.3 mm/yr extension) and the Owens fracture zone (3.2–2.5 ± 0.5 mm/yr, right lateral, increasing from north to south; 1–2 mm/yr extension). On a broad scale, the Arabian plate has no resolvable internal deformation (weighted root mean square of residual motions for Arabia equals 0.6 mm/yr), although there is marginally significant evidence for N‐S shortening in the Palmyride Mountains, Syria at ≤ 1.5 mm/yr. We show that present‐day Arabia plate motion with respect to Eurasia is consistent within uncertainties (i.e., ±10%) with plate tectonic estimates since the early Miocene when Arabia separated from Nubia. We estimate the time of Red Sea and Gulf of Aden rifting from present‐day Arabia motion, plate tectonic evidence for a 70% increase in Arabia‐Nubia relative motion at 13 Ma, and the width of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and find that rifting initiated roughly simultaneously (±2.2 Myr) along the strike of the Red Sea from the Gulf of Suez to the Afar Triple Junction, as well as along the West Gulf of Aden at 24 ± 2.2 Ma. Based on the present kinematics, we hypothesize that the negative buoyancy of the subducted ocean lithosphere beneath the Makran and the Zagros fold‐thrust belt is the principle driver of Arabia‐Eurasia convergence and that resisting forces associated with Arabia‐Eurasia continental collision have had little impact on plate motion.

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“…Eastern Turkey is an ideal area for the application of these methods, as the fault slip rates are high and the spatial coverage of GPS measurements is relatively dense. Reilinger et al [2006] (red), Ozener et al [2010] (blue), Alchalbi et al [2010] (purple), Yavaşoglu et al [2011] (yellow), Reilinger and McClusky [2011] (black), Tatar et al [2012] (green), and Aktug et al [2012] (pink). All GPS velocities have all been rotated into the reference frame of Reilinger et al [2006], using common stations, with the exception of data from Yavaşoglu et al [2011].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constraining crustal velocity fields with InSAR for Eastern Turkey: Limits to the block‐like behavior of Eastern Anatolia

2014

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The Sentinel-1 satellite mission will enable global strain rate mapping from interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) and GPS data, and methods to combine these data in velocity fields will become increasingly important. Here we use InSAR to measure interseismic deformation in Eastern Turkey, across a ∼250,000 km 2 area that spans the Arabia-Eurasia plate boundary zone. From our InSAR data we first estimate slip rates and locking depths for the North and East Anatolian Faults (NAF and EAF) of 20 ± 3 mm/yr and ∼16 km and 11 ± 3 mm/yr and ∼16 km, respectively, but we also combine the InSAR data with existing GPS velocity measurements to construct high-resolution velocity and strain rate fields across the region for the first time. We calculate 2-D and 3-D velocity fields and find that strain is mainly localized across the NAF and EAF and that there is negligible differential vertical motion across the Eastern Anatolian plateau. We also show that high-resolution 2-D strain rate fields can be calculated from InSAR alone, even in the absence of GPS data. We fit a block model to our velocity field and estimate slip rates of ∼21 mm/yr and ∼8 mm/yr for the NAF and EAF, showing that our previous estimates differ from these values because they neglected crustal rotation. Although this rotation is an important component of the velocity field in Eastern Turkey, systematic residuals between our velocity field and the best fitting block for Anatolia suggest that the region is not block-like as proposed by previous authors.

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Crustal deformation in northwestern Arabia from GPS measurements in Syria: Slow slip rate along the northern Dead Sea Fault

Cited by 80 publications

References 43 publications

The kinematics of central-southern Turkey and northwest Syria revisited

The kinematics of central-southern Turkey and northwest Syria revisited

Geodetic constraints on present‐day motion of the Arabian Plate: Implications for Red Sea and Gulf of Aden rifting

Constraining crustal velocity fields with InSAR for Eastern Turkey: Limits to the block‐like behavior of Eastern Anatolia

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