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.
Highlights
[2] Plate motion at continental transforms, such as the San Andreas Fault in southern California and the North Anatolian Fault (NAF) in western Turkey, can be distributed across several fault strands spanning hundreds of kilometers
The 1500 km long NAF splits into three major branches in northwest Turkey (Figure 1), and most of the strain accumulation is thought to occur on the northern branch (NAF-N) that bisects the Marmara Sea
(1) How is deformation distributed between the faults branches beneath Marmara Sea? Most studies agree that the NAF-N accommodates a large portion of the motion, but it is unclear to what extent the two other branches of the NAF might participate in accommodating some of this strike-slip motion or in forming the basins of the Marmara Sea
Summary
H., et al (2013), Steady late quaternary slip rate on the Cinarcik section of the North Anatolian fault near Istanbul, Turkey, Geophys. The North Anatolian Fault in northwest Turkey is a prime example of a multistranded continental transform. 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). 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
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