The Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East is a historically turbulent region.  As the world learned on the morning of September 11, 2001, much of the turmoil is the result of violent interactions between opposing human forces. However, there are other volatile forces at work shaping the history of this region.  This chaotic terrain is set in an impressively active and complex plate tectonic framework. 

The plate interactions of this region are dominated by convergent boundaries involving both subduction and collision.  The Arabian and African plates are pushing northward into the Eurasian plate (map).  According to recent plate tectonic models, the African plate is moving northward relative to the Eurasian plate at approximately 10 mm/yr and is being subducted along the Hellenic Arc.  The Arabian plate is moving north-northwest relative to Eurasia at 18-25 mm/yr.  The result is a continental collison along the Bitlis-Zagros fold and thrust belt.  The smaller Anatolian plate is caught in the middle of all of this movement.

Sandwiched in between the Eurasian, Arabian and African plates, the Anatolian plate suffers the effects of the differential motion of these giants.  Much like a ball bearing, the Anatolian plate is being slowly spun in a counter-clockwise direction to accommodate the more prodigious northward progress and slight westward penchant of the Arabian plate relative to the African plate.  This motion is largely accommodated by left-lateral slip on the East Anatolian Fault and right-lateral slip along the North Anatolian Fault (McKenzie, 1970).  The movement is slow, but persistent with occasionally spectacular results.

The North Anatolian fault is a strike-slip fault that bounds the Anatolian plate from the Aegean Sea in the east to the Karliova Triple Junction in the west (map).  The fault has been the setting of twelve major (magnitude 6.7 or greater) earthquakes in the past 90 years.  A trend of westward migration of several of these earthquakes helped geologists and geophysicists identify the Marmara segment of the North Anatolian fault which as a seismic gap.  Consequently, many Global Positioning System (GPS) stations were established in the Marmara region to continuously record movement.

On August 17, 1999 a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck the Marmara segment of the North Anatolian fault near the city of Izmit in the middle an area that is home to one quarter of Turkey’s population.  Despite efforts that were underway to educate and prepare the population of this earthquake-prone region, the devastating tremor claimed more than 30,000 lives and caused billions of dollars in damages.  Nonetheless, this tragic event affords an excellent opportunity for the scientific community to learn more about plate tectonics and the resultant earthquake processes.  Data recorded by the GPS network is providing information about strain and deformation that may help in future efforts to predict earthquakes on the North Anatolian fault and other similar strike-slip faults such as the San Andreas fault in California (Reilinger et al, 2000).

REFERENCES:

• McKenzie, D.P., 1970 Plate tectonics of the Mediterranean region:  Nature, v.226, p. 239-243.
• Reilinger, R.. Toksoz, M.N., Mcluskey, S., and Barka, A., 2000:  GSA Today, v.10, no.1.

Other Feature Articles in this chapter:  1  :  2  :  3

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