Is the Amik Basin (SE Turkey) a triple-junction area? Analyses of SPOT XS imagery and seismicity

Abstract

In the eastern Mediterranean, plate motions occur between the Arabia/Anatolia, Africa/Arabia and Anatolia/Africa boundaries along the Amanos Fault, the Dead Sea Fault and the Cyprus Arc, and the extension of the latter on land. Detailed enhancement and classification procedures applied to SPOT XS imagery of the Hatay region, and centred on the Quaternary Amik Basin, have revealed a prominent NE-SW-trending tectonic lineament. Recent seismicity suggests that this NE-SW-trending lineament dies out in the Quaternary Amik Basin in the east and continues to the Cyprus Arc to the south-west. Structural lineament extensions derived from SPOT XS imagery using linear edge enhancement and unsupervised classification methods and the distribution of seismicity in the Hatay region show that this region has been affected by the East Anatolian Fault Zone, the Dead Sea Fault Zone and the Cyprus-Antakya Transform fault. These fault associations accommodate northerly movement of the African and Arabian plates toward the Eurasian plate. The Amik Basin appears to have been formed by interaction among the Amanos Fault interpreted here as a continuation of the East Anatolian Fault the left-lateral Dead Sea Fault, and the left-lateral Cyprus-Antakya transform fault. Active faults belonging to the aforementioned structural zones meet one another to form a triple junction at the Amik Basin near Antakya.

Assessment of potential seismic hazard and site effect in Antakya (Hatay Province), SE Turkey

“…Antakya located in the Eurasian, African and Arabian tectonic interaction zone, forming a triple junction area (Over et al 2004b), is the seismically dangerous region. Antakya, the largest city of a former civilization (i.e., Mesopotamian), had been demolished many times by earthquakes in its history (Table 1); the last two (Ergin et al 1967).…”

Trust in a viable real estate economy with disruption and blockchain

“…To better define active fault belts in recent years, in addition to studies in the field, detailed observations of satellite images are made in the computer environment (Adıyaman et al, 2001) and data are assessed together. Though lineation analysis with remote sensing methods is a commonly-used research method in geological research (Süzen and Toprak, 1998;Över et al, 2004), lineations produced by this analysis only represent broken lines (Karaca et al, 2003). Structural lineations formed by linear features like valleys and ridges contain important elements to define nature and topography (O'Leary et al 1976).…”

A view of tectonic structure and gravity anomalies of Hatay Region Southern Turkey using wavelet analysis

“…Saroglu et al (1992) defined a triple junction in the vicinity of Antakya between the EAF and DSF plate boundaries and a small NNW-SSE-trending dextral local segment, named the Reyhanlı Fault, which evidently does not represent any plate, sub-plate or block boundary. Over et al (2004) suggested that major faults, which are proximal to each other in the vicinity of the Amik Basin, form a triple junction (Antakya triple junction) to accommodate deformation between Arabia/Anatolia, Africa/Arabia and Anatolia/Africa.…”

“…5b). The Cilicia region has very complex tectonism and lies in an intersection domain among three active belts: the southern end of the left-lateral East Anatolian Fault (EAF), the northern end of the left-lateral Dead Sea Fault (DSF), and the Cyprus Antakya Transform (CAT) (Over et al, 2004). This domain accommodates the relative motions of Arabia/Anatolia, Africa/ Arabia and Anatolia/Africa (Mc Kenzie, 1972;Mc Kenzie, 1976;Le Pichon and Angelier, 1979;Şengör, 1979;Jackson and McKenzie, 1984;Dewey et al, 1986;Westaway, 1994).…”