Reconnaissance Mission Reconnaissance Team Papers Pictures Links and References Acknowledgements

The North Anatolian Fault, which runs through the northern region of Turkey (between the Eurasian and Arabian plates), has been highly publicized in recent months due to a couple of large earthquakes that occurred along its trace. Most recently, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck Turkey on November 12, 1999; its epicenter located in the town of Duzce (population 200,000), 115 miles east of Istanbul. Preliminary reports indicate that more than 100 buildings were destroyed, 400 confirmed dead and over 800 injured. This event follows the magnitude 7.4 August 17 Izmit earthquake which was the largest and most destructive tremor to occur in Turkey since the 1939 Erzincan earthquake. More than 17,000 people were confirmed dead and over 50,000 were injured.

Turkey has a long history of major ground shaking along the North Anatolian Fault. The seismicity along this fault is dominated by intermediate to large magnitude events with relatively few small events. Since 1939, there have been 11 magnitude 6.7 or greater earthquakes along the fault, (nine of which had magnitudes greater than 7.0) making it one of the most seismically active right-lateral strike-slip faults in the world. These previous earthquakes follow a pattern that progresses generally in the western direction along the fault. The North Anatolian Fault extends more than 1400 km and resembles the San Andreas Fault in California. A right-lateral fault is one that, if an observer was standing on one side of the fault looking towards the other side, the observer would see the ground on the other side of the fault move to the right. A strike-slip fault describes the relative motion of the ground on either side of the rupture as parallel to the fault direction.