Steady late quaternary slip rate on the Cinarcik section of the North Anatolian fault near Istanbul, Turkey

Abstract

The distribution of plate motion between multiple fault strands and how this distribution may evolve remain poorly understood, despite the key implications for seismic hazards. The North Anatolian Fault in northwest Turkey is a prime example of a multistranded continental transform. Here we present the first constraints on late Quaternary slip rates on its northern branch across the Cinarcik Basin in the eastern Marmara Sea. We use both deep penetration and high‐resolution multichannel seismic reflection data with a stratigraphic age model to show that a depocenter has persisted near the fault bend responsible for that transform basin. Successively older depocenters have been transported westward by fault motion relative to Eurasia, indicating a uniform right‐lateral slip rate of 18.5 mm/yr over the last 500,000 years, compared to overall GPS rates (23–24 mm/yr). Thus, the northern branch has slipped at a nearly constant rate and has accounted for most of the relative plate motion between Eurasia and Anatolia since ~0.5 Ma.

Spatial slip behavior of large strike‐slip fault belts: Implications for the Holocene slip rates of the eastern termination of the North Anatolian Fault, Turkey

“…These new slip rate estimates are significantly slower than the other morphochronology‐based rates, which are about, from west to east, 17 mm/yr for the last 20 kyr (between 26.8°E and 27.3°E) [ Aksoy , 2009], 17.5–18.5 mm/yr for the last 500 kyr (27.8°E [ Grall et al ., ] and 29°E [ Kurt et al ., ]), 22 mm/yr for the last 1000 years (30.4°E) [ Dikbaş et al ., ], 20.5 mm/yr for the last 2250 years (33.67°E) [ Kozacı et al ., ], 21 mm/yr for the last 1600 years (33.92°E) [ Hubert‐Ferrari et al ., ], and 18.5 mm/yr for the last 3 kyr (35.05°E) [ Kozacı et al ., ], or even most of the palaeoseismological‐derived velocities of about 17 mm/yr for the last millennium [ Kondo et al ., ; Meghraoui et al ., ] along other segments of the NAF. Our results are equal or slightly higher than some geologic rates, which do not cover any near‐fault distributed strain and/or underestimate the coseismic slip of the latest earthquake (12.5 mm/yr at 33.5°E) [ Sugai et al ., ] or which do not include the distributed strain along parallel/subparallel fault branches (~10 mm/yr for the Saros Bay and the İzmit Gulf [ Gasperini et al ., ] and 15 mm/yr for the Düzce Fault [ Pucci et al ., ]).…”

Submarine Earthquake History of the Çınarcık Segment of the North Anatolian Fault in the Marmara Sea, Turkey

“…1a). In the Marmara Sea, the NAF accommodates a dextral horizontal motion of 18:5 mm=yr (Kurt et al, 2013) spread over a width of 130 km (Barka and Kadinsky-Cade, 1988). Most of the deformation is localized on the northern branch of the NAF (Armijo et al, 2002), which crosses the Marmara Sea.…”

Crustal Strain in the Marmara Pull‐Apart Region Associated With the Propagation Process of the North Anatolian Fault

“…1b). Those sediments are cut by north and south dipping faults with significant normal component of slip, as observed in high-resolution bathymetric maps Armijo et al, 2002;, deep-penetration seismic reflection and refraction data [Wong et al, 1995;Parke et al 1999;Carton et al, 2007;Laigle et al, 2008;Bécel et al, 2009; and 2-D and 3-D high resolution multichannel seismic data [Grall et al, 2012;Kurt et al, 2013]. At odds with the evidence for structural complexity and fault segmentation which appear to be fundamental features of the pull-apart system, Imren et al [2001; [2003] and Şengör et al [2005], among others, have alternatively interpreted the Marmara pull-apart system as a trough resulting mainly from the Western Anatolia N-S extensional regime during the middle Miocene.…”