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Early preliminary results on co-seismic deformation of the island of Samos associated with co-seismic slip following the October 2020 Mw 6.9 Samos earthquake (Greece)

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Abstract

On 30 October 2020, an Mw 6.9 normal faulting earthquake to the north and offshore from the island of Samos, very close to the south west coast of Turkey, occurred at 14:51 local time (11:51:34.8 UTC). In this study, the stress change features of the rupture process and the co-seismic surface deformation of the island of Samos during this event are analyzed. The co-seismic slip distribution model of the causative fault was initially adopted, inverted from the Global Centroid Moment Tensor (GCMT) solution for the Mw 6.9 Samos 2020 earthquake. Then, this GCMT-inverted fault source model (uniform-slip) was used to compute the co-seismic Coulomb stress changes in the crustal volume affected by the early seismicity and to analyze the Coulomb stress change characteristics of the mainshock in terms of early aftershocks, stress state of the causative fault, and of the adjacent Samos island. Lastly, interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) interferograms (Sentinel-1 satellites) were used to measure the co-seismic surface displacements of the adjacent island of Samos and to evaluate stress transfer of the causative fault. Finally, the results obtained from the Coulomb stress changes associated with the co-seismic slip distribution and InSAR observations were compared. The Coulomb stress change features caused by the uniform-slip for the causative fault were in good agreement with the pattern of aftershock distributions in the first week following the mainshock. It was found that most of the aftershocks occurred in end-fault and off-fault lobes, as areas of Coulomb stress increase of 2–5 bar, and in the stress shadow zone near the rupture, as an area of Coulomb stress decreases of between − 4 and − 5 bar, corresponding to the largest slip patch (~ 2.7 m) according to the uniform-slip. A rupture propagation direction from E (~ 2.7 m max. slip) to W (~ 30 cm min. slip) and asymmetric deepening of the slip distribution down to a depth > 10 km in the fault plane, in agreement with our uniform-slip model, explained the Samos mainshock, Coulomb stress changes, and co-seismic deformation of Samos island. The best constraints on the early deformation pattern of Samos island, in the absence of near-mainshock seismic stations, obtained from InSAR data revealed maximum displacement (± ~ 10 cm) of the island from E to W and from SE (subsidence) to NW (uplift). Finally, based on the Coulomb stress change and InSAR computation, it is concluded that the 2020 Samos mainshock increased the stress level of the assumed faults and/or possible fault segments in the N and adjacent to Samos island in the S as a result of end-fault and off-fault lobes.

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Acknowledgements

We send our greatest thanks to Dr. Huseyin Tur (Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa, Geophysical Engineering, Istanbul) for his recommendations on co-seismic surface displacements of Samos island, interpretation of InSAR results, and for InSAR discussions about the submarine rupture source of the earthquake and to Dr. T. Serkan Irmak (Kocaeli University, Geophysical Engineering, Kocaeli) for his excellent waveform fittings and subfault CMT solutions on co-seismic slip distribution model of Samos island and for discussions about various model patterns of slip distribution performed by him. The authors are grateful to the Research and Service Support team of the European Space Agency (ESA) for SAR images. The authors are also grateful to Mr. Jeremy Jones, of the Academic Writing Department of Kocaeli University, Izmit, Turkey, for his assistance in editing the English used and for his help and advice concerning the contents of this manuscript. We sincerely thank the reviewers and the editor. The original manuscript was improved by detailed reviews from the two anonymous reviewers and the editor. Their thoughtful and critical comments helped greatly to shape the final form of this manuscript. We used the Coulomb 3.3 Software developed by USGS (Toda et al. 2005) and the GMT software package to plot some of the maps (Wessel and Smith 1998).

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  1. Department of Geophysical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Yuzuncu Yıl University, Van, Turkey

    Mustafa Toker

  2. Department of Geomatics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Turkey

    Erman Şentürk

  3. Department of Geomatics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Bulent Ecevit University, Zonguldak, Turkey

    Çağlar Bayık

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Toker, M., Şentürk, E. & Bayık, Ç. Early preliminary results on co-seismic deformation of the island of Samos associated with co-seismic slip following the October 2020 Mw 6.9 Samos earthquake (Greece). Arab J Geosci 14, 2691 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-08951-x

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