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The recently compiled Turkish strong motion database: preliminary investigation for seismological parameters

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Abstract

Strong motion data recorded by the Turkish national strong motion network has been compiled and processed systematically for the first time, together with detailed geophysical and geotechnical site measurements for all of its stations. The catalog information of 18 seismological agencies and other sources were examined to obtain reliable source, geometry, and distance parameters for each event. The high quality digital and analog strong motion data was processed by a uniform methodology to remove the high- and low-frequency noise. Currently, the seismological and spectral information of 4,607 strong motion records are available for use by earth scientists and earthquake engineers. In this article, we present the fundamental features of this database and explain our methodology in their calculation. We present several comparisons of our database with other related studies to verify our approach during the computational stage of the seismological parameters. The results confirm the reliability of our calculations. The database has also enabled us to derive empirical magnitude conversion relationships to estimate moment magnitude in terms of different magnitude scales. The article ends with a discussion of the likely improvements in the European accelerometric data through contributions from this strong motion database applicable for seismically active shallow-crust regions. The findings of this article emphasize the necessity of global strong motion databases in Europe for better estimation of seismic hazard in regions of similar seismotectonic environment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earthquake Engineering Research Center, Middle East Technical University, Main Campus, 06531, Ankara, Turkey

    Sinan Akkar, Emrah Yenier, Özgür Erdoğan, M. Abdullah Sandıkkaya & Polat Gülkan

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Middle East Technical University, Northern Cyprus Campus, Kalkanlı Güzelyurt, KKTC, Mersin, 10, Turkey

    Zehra Çağnan

Authors
  1. Sinan Akkar
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  2. Zehra Çağnan
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  3. Emrah Yenier
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  4. Özgür Erdoğan
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  5. M. Abdullah Sandıkkaya
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  6. Polat Gülkan
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Correspondence to Sinan Akkar.

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Akkar, S., Çağnan, Z., Yenier, E. et al. The recently compiled Turkish strong motion database: preliminary investigation for seismological parameters. J Seismol 14, 457–479 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-009-9176-9

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