Characterization of the co-seismic pattern and slip distribution of the February 06, 2023, Kahramanmaraş (Turkey) earthquakes (Mw 7.7 and Mw 7.6) with a dense GNSS network

Abstract

Two consecutive earthquakes with the magnitudes of Mw 7.7 and 7.6 (February 06, 2023) occurred on the East Anatolian Fault Zone (EAFZ) segments and unfortunately resulted in significant devastation to human life and cities in Turkey and Syria. In this study, we aimed to analyse the co-seismic displacements and fault slip distributions of these seismic events. Our unique high-spatial-resolution Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) network (comprising 73 permanent GNSS stations and 40 campaign observation sites), providing the recent geodetic dataset for the region, allows better constraint of the co-seismic surface displacements and slip distributions of both earthquakes. The three largest total displacements were identified as 466 cm, 362 cm, and 360 cm. The Fault interactions along the EAFZ were obvious during the consecutive earthquakes. The ruptures mainly occurred in the left-lateral components of the fault segments, with the maximum slips of 7.25 m and 9.43 m for the first event along the EAFZ and the second event on the Çardak Fault, respectively.