Encyclopedia of Earthquake Engineering

Living Edition
| Editors: Michael Beer, Ioannis A. Kougioumtzoglou, Edoardo Patelli, Ivan Siu-Kui Au

Paleoseismic Trenching

  • H. Serdar Akyüz
  • Volkan Karabacak
  • Cengiz Zabcı
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36197-5_107-1
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Synonyms

Active fault; Earthquake history; Paleoseismology; Trenching

Introduction: The Importance of Trenching in Paleoseismology

Trenching on a fault trace is a direct way to understand the historical (mainly Holocene) evolution of a fault segment. What are signatures of past earthquakes at the Earth’s surface? How do we recognize and identify past (paleo-)earthquakes? One of the most famous and fundamental principles of modern geology, “the present is the key to the past,” provides the answer, from which historical seismic events are accepted to have the same effect as modern ones do. However, the incompleteness of the historical record makes it hard to determine and identify paleo-earthquake-related structures. The discrimination of paleoseismic evidences from geological and geomorphological processes and the attribution of them to certain historical events make an important contribution to the seismic risk assessment of any region.

Paleoseismology is the art of the identification...

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Authors and Affiliations

  • H. Serdar Akyüz
    • 1
  • Volkan Karabacak
    • 2
  • Cengiz Zabcı
    • 1
  1. 1.İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi, Maden Fakültesi, Jeoloji Müh. Bölümü, AyazağaİstanbulTurkey
  2. 2.Eskişehir Osmangazi Üniversitesi, Mühendislik-Mimarlık Fakültesi, Jeoloji Müh. BölümüMeşelik, EskişehirTurkey