The July 20, 2017 Mw = 6.6 Bodrum-Kos Earthquake, Southeast Aegean Sea: Contribution of the Tsunami Modeling to the Assessment of the Fault Parameters

Abstract

The South East Aegean Sea is seismically active with crustal and intermediate-depth earthquakes of magnitude that can exceed the magnitude M w = 7. On July 20, 2017, a shallow normal faulting M w = 6.6 earthquake occurred in the Gulf of Go ¨kova, 10 km away from the cities of Kos and Bodrum. A tsunami hit the coasts of Turkey and Kos Island with waves of up to 2 m that damaged several harbors. Based on the field surveys and the tide-gauge records of Bodrum, Syros and Kos harbors, we performed tsunami simulations to constrain the source and analyze the North v/s South-dipping solutions for the fault plane. Depending on the source model, the simulations show different height distributions which provide complementary constrains on the source parameters, helping the characterization of the fault plane. The comparison between our maximum wave heights models and the field data favor the North-dipping fault scenario. When using only the constraint of the Bodrum tide-gauge, our models lead to a source with a 0.7 m fault slip, incompatible with the slip inferred from geodesy. When using the constrain from neighboring coastal wave heights and run-up recovered during field surveys, the best fit is obtained with a 2 m fault slip scenario consistent with the geodetic models. There is a 0.25 m mean difference between observed and synthetic water heights that could be due to the unaccuracy of the bathymetry data.

New Observational Material about Seismic and Non-Seismic Tsunamis in Greece and Surrounding Areas from 1900 to 2023

“…Eastern Corinth Gulf, Central Greece, 24 February 1981 (R = 4, K = 3 in Loutraki) On 20 July 2017 at 22:31:12 UTC, a strong damaging earthquake (M w 6.64) shook the area of the southeastern Aegean Sea (Table 1, Figure 1) and triggered a tsunami wave that was observed in Kos Island, Greece, and in Bodrum peninsula, western Turkey [9][10][11][12]. In Kos port, the wave was measured at 1.5 m a.s.l.…”

Crisis Communication after Earthquakes in Greece and Japan: Effects on Seismic Disaster Management

“…On 20 July 2017, Kos Island at the Greek-Turkish border in the Mediterranean Sea (Figure 8) experienced a strong earthquake of Mw 6.6 [52] that caused 2 casualties and hundreds of injuries due to building collapses [53]. A small-scale tsunami wave of up to 1.5 m arose 13 min after the earthquake at the island's port; this reached a height of 1.9 m when it arrived at Bodrum's peninsula in Turkey.…”