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Spatial analysis of b-value variability in Elazig city and the surrounding area (Eastern Turkey)

  • Research Article - Solid Earth Sciences
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Abstract

Frequency-magnitude distribution was investigated in Elazig city and the surrounding area (coordinates ranging from 38.1° N to 39° N for latitudes and 39° E to 40° E for longitude) to reveal the present-day crustal stress within the region. For this study, a complete set of 5603 earthquakes of Md ≥ 1 from 1 January 2000 to 31 August 2020 were localized from the Bogazici University, Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute, Regional Earthquake-Tsunami Monitoring Center (KOERI) catalogue. For the whole study region, spatial mapping of the frequency-magnitude distribution was thus produced. The frequency-magnitude distribution (b-value) for seismicity within the study area was not homogeneous. Outstanding variations in the b-value were detected with b ranging from b ≈ slightly more than 0.3–2. In this region, low b-values are mostly dominant in the region except for a few local areas. This study also shows that accumulated stresses are high particularly at the Pütürge segment in contrast to the fault drawn in the south, which represents the main thrust belt that runs through Hani-Lice and stretches to Çüngüş. As expected, stress accumulation in reverse faults is fairly higher. However, the sharing of the tension formed in the compression zone of the Arabian Plate and the Anatolian plate (i.e. stress partitioning in a sense), results in a low share in the reverse fault belt.

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Data availability

The earthquake data are public data from Bogazici University, Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute, Regional Earthquake-Tsunami Monitoring Center (KOERI-RETMC) catalogue, and T.C. Prime Ministry Disaster and Emergency Management. Derived data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author Dr. Gulten Polat on request.

Code availability

In this study, ZMAP and Matlab (2019) were used. ZMAP is accessible via this link: SED|ZMAP (ethz.ch).

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the staff at KOERI-RETMC for providing data. Also, I am grateful to Dr. Doğan Kalafat from KOERI for his valuable comments regarding seismic analysis of the study region. Some figures in the paper were created using the GMT software package (Wessel et al. 2013) and MATLAB19b. I thank the anonymous referees for their useful suggestions.

Funding

This study has not been supported by any projects or/and institutions. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Yeditepe University, 26 Ağustos Yerleşkesi, Kayışdağı Cad., 34755, Istanbul, Turkey

    Gulten Polat

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  1. Gulten Polat
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Correspondence to Gulten Polat.

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Communicated by Dr. Aybige Akinci (ASSOCIATE EDITOR) / Prof. Ramon Zúñigas (CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF).

The original online version of this article was revised: uncomplete information for communicated by.

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Polat, G. Spatial analysis of b-value variability in Elazig city and the surrounding area (Eastern Turkey). Acta Geophys. 70, 15–25 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-021-00694-3

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