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An improved earthquake catalogue (M ≥ 4.0) for Turkey and its near vicinity (1900–2012)

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Abstract

Many catalogues, agency reports and research articles have been published on seismicity of Turkey and its surrounding since 1950s. Given existing magnitude heterogeneity, erroneous information on epicentral location, event date and time, this past published data however is far from fulfilling the required standards. Paucity of a standardized format in the available catalogues have reinforced the need for a refined and updated catalogue for earthquake related hazard and risk studies. During this study, ~37,000 earthquakes and related parametric data were evaluated by utilizing more than 41 published studies and, an integrated database was prepared in order to analyse all parameters acquired from the catalogues and references for each event. Within the scope of this study, the epicentral locations of M ≥ 5.0 events were firstly reappraised based on the updated Active Fault Map of Turkey. An improved catalogue of 12.674 events for the period 1900–2012 was as a result recompiled for the region between 32–45N° and 23–48E° by analyzing in detail accuracy of all seismological parameters available for each event. The events consist of M ≥ 4.0 are reported in several magnitude scales (e.g. moment magnitude, Mw; surface wave magnitude, MS; body-wave magnitude mb; local magnitude ML and duration magnitude Md) whereas the maximum focal depth reaches up to 225-km. In order to provide homogenous data, the improved catalogue is unified in terms of Mw. Fore-and aftershocks were also removed from the catalogue and completeness analyses were performed both separately for various tectonic sources and as a whole for the study region of interest. Thus, the prepared homogenous and declustered catalogue consisting of 6573 events provides the basis for a reliable input to the seismic hazard assessment studies for Turkey and its surrounding areas.

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Acknowledgements

This work was carried out as a part of the ‘Seismotectonic Maps of Turkey’ project supported by the General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration (MTA), Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) and Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institution (KRDAE). We gratefully acknowledge the MTA, AFAD and KRDAE for the support provided. Also we would like to thank guest editor and the reviewers for their comments that help improve the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earthquake Department, AFAD, Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, Çankaya, Ankara, Turkey

    F. Tuba Kadirioğlu, Recai F. Kartal & Tuğbay Kılıç

  2. Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institutions, Boğaziçi University, Çengelköy, Istanbul, Turkey

    Doğan Kalafat

  3. Fugro Sial Geosciences Consulting and Engineering, Farabi Sok. 40/4, Çankaya, 06680, Ankara, Turkey

    Tamer Y. Duman & Ömer Emre

  4. Civil Engineering Department, Engineering Faculty, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey

    Tuba Eroğlu Azak

  5. General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration, Çankaya, 06800, Ankara, Turkey

    Selim Özalp

Authors
  1. F. Tuba Kadirioğlu
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  2. Recai F. Kartal
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  3. Tuğbay Kılıç
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  4. Doğan Kalafat
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  5. Tamer Y. Duman
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  6. Tuba Eroğlu Azak
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  7. Selim Özalp
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  8. Ömer Emre
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to F. Tuba Kadirioğlu.

Additional information

The data and interpretations given here are supported by the integrated database (Table 7) comprise ~37.000 data for 12.674 events, whole improved catalogue (Table 8) of 12.674 events, and homogeneous catalogue (Table 9) of 6573 events with parametric information, this is available at doi:10.1007/s10518-016-0064-8.

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Kadirioğlu, F.T., Kartal, R.F., Kılıç, T. et al. An improved earthquake catalogue (M ≥ 4.0) for Turkey and its near vicinity (1900–2012). Bull Earthquake Eng 16, 3317–3338 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-016-0064-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-016-0064-8

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