What happens in this corner of the Eastern Mediterranean? Well, there is a confluence of four tectonic plates, which are Anatolian, Arabian, Eurasian and African; The moving pieces of the puzzle that make up the terrestrial lithosphere. The anvil-shaped Anatolian Plate is pushed by the Arabian Plate to the east, the Eurasian Plate to the north, and the African Plate to the south. The slow and gradual movement of tectonic plates causes an accumulation of significant stress at their edges…
Subscribe to continue reading
read without limits
What happens in this corner of the Eastern Mediterranean? Well, there is a confluence of four tectonic plates, which are Anatolian, Arabian, Eurasian and African; The moving pieces of the puzzle that make up the terrestrial lithosphere. The anvil-shaped Anatolian Plate is pushed by the Arabian Plate to the east, the Eurasian Plate to the north, and the African Plate to the south. The slow and gradual movement of tectonic plates causes the accumulation of significant stresses at their edges which progressively deform the crustal rocks until they fracture. These are faults, those seams of weakness, that can quickly release a large amount of stored elastic energy, causing an earthquake.
Turkey is one of the world’s most seismically active regions as it is crossed by two major faults: the North Anatolian Fault, which borders the Eurasian Plate, and extends from the Armenian Plateau to the Sea of Marmara; and the East Anatolian Fault, which borders the Arabian Plate, and which partly straddles Turkey’s border with Syria until it joins the Cyprus arc. Both faults are very long (1,000 km and 700 km, respectively), which determines that they can generate massive earthquakes (size matters). Furthermore, they are transform faults, which in geologic jargon means that tectonic plates move laterally with respect to each other. Above all, on transform faults, earthquakes are less shallow, which can make them more dangerous and damaging. A very famous example of a transform fault is the San Andres Fault, which runs 1,300 km from Mexico to Oregon, and where the Pacific and North American plates meet; Another area of large earthquakes.
The epicenter of this week’s earthquake is located on the Eastern Anatolian Fault Line. The epicenter of the largest of them (magnitude 7.8) was located in the southern segment of the fault, near the Syrian border. Hours later, another (magnitude 7.5) followed, located further north, in another section of the aforementioned fault. If one looks at the arrangement of the many aftershocks, one will see that they are aligned with these two segments of the East Anatolian Fault, following a tectonic path marked by the mountain ranges of southeastern Turkey. The landscape is a reflection of the geology.
As a general rule, earthquakes are recurrent on the same fault, that is, they recur. As soon as one breaks, the constant movement of tectonic plates again accumulates stress and deforms the rocks until the next break. This is the story of old Anatolia, which has experienced 50 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or higher during the last 100 years. Major earthquakes mark the vast cultural heritage of Turkey and the memory of its people. As an example of geological adaptation, remember the advanced earthquake-resistant design of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, which has survived over 1,500 years of earthquakes.
There are more than 300,000 earthquakes in the world every year that can be felt by the population. Only a few of these are of great magnitude and can cause widespread damage and fatalities when they occur over populated areas. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened in one of the most dangerous seismic places on Earth, the border region between Turkey and Syria.
Are there similar geological contexts for Anatolia? Japan may well represent one of them, with several tectonic plates (even four) converging in the Pacific. In our recent memory, the Kobe (1995) and Tōhoku (2011) earthquakes still remain, the latter accompanied by the devastating tsunami that devastated Japan’s northeast coast, leading to the Fukushima nuclear tragedy.
The English geologist Derek V. Ager said that “Earth’s history is like a soldier’s life, long periods of boredom and brief moments of terror.” There are places on our planet where moments of terror occur more often; Moments that unfortunately remind us of human fragility in the face of the force of terrestrial dynamics.
rosa maria mateos He is a Research Professor at the National Geological and Mining Institute of CSIC, Spain.
we answer is a weekly scientific consultation sponsored by Dr Foundation Anthony Steve and programs L’Oréal-UNESCO ‘For Women in Science’, which answers readers’ questions about science and technology. He is a scientist and technologist, a member of AMIT (Association of Women Researchers and Technologists), which answers those questions. send your questions to [email protected] Or #werspond via Twitter.
Coordination and Writing:Victoria Bull
you can follow materia In Facebook, Twitter I Instagrampoint here to get our weekly newsletter,
