Heightened odds of large earthquakes near istanbul: An interaction-based probability calculation

We calculate the probability of strong shaking in Istanbul, an urban center of 10 million people, from the description of earthquakes on the North Anatolian fault system in the Marmara Sea during the past 500 years and test the resulting catalog against the frequency of damage in Istanbul during the preceding millennium. Departing from current practice, we include the time-dependent effect of stress transferred by the 1999 moment magnitude M = 7.4 Izmit earthquake to faults nearer to Istanbul. We find a 62 +/- 15% probability (one standard deviation) of strong shaking during the next 30 years and 32 +/- 12% during the next decade.

[1]  N. N. Ambraseys,et al.  The seismicity of Turkey and adjacent areas: A historical review, 1500-1800 , 1995 .

[2]  R. Stein The role of stress transfer in earthquake occurrence , 1999, Nature.

[3]  Remo Guidieri Res , 1995, RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics.

[4]  N. N. Ambraseys,et al.  The Marmara Sea earthquake of 1509 , 1990 .

[5]  Thomas H. Heaton,et al.  Relationships between Peak Ground Acceleration, Peak Ground Velocity, and Modified Mercalli Intensity in California , 1999 .

[6]  M. N. Toksöz,et al.  Space-time migration of earthquakes along the North Anatolian fault zone and seismic gaps , 1979 .

[7]  W. H. Bakun,et al.  Estimating earthquake location and magnitude from seismic intensity data , 1997, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

[8]  J. C. Savage Criticism of some forecasts of the national earthquake prediction evaluation council , 1991, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

[9]  D. Wells,et al.  New empirical relationships among magnitude, rupture length, rupture width, rupture area, and surface displacement , 1994, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

[10]  James H. Dieterich,et al.  Progressive failure on the North Anatolian fault since 1939 by earthquake stress triggering , 1997 .

[11]  Y. Okada Internal deformation due to shear and tensile faults in a half-space , 1992, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

[12]  J. Dieterich,et al.  Implications of fault constitutive properties for earthquake prediction. , 1996, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[13]  Mustafa Aktar,et al.  The seismotectonics of the Marmara region (Turkey): results from a microseismic experiment , 2000 .

[14]  G. King,et al.  Stress coupling between earthquakes in northwest Turkey and the north Aegean Sea , 1996 .

[15]  G. King,et al.  STATIC STRESS CHANGES AND THE TRIGGERING OF EARTHQUAKES , 1994 .

[16]  Bertrand Meyer,et al.  Seismic hazard in the Marmara Sea region following the 17 August 1999 Izmit earthquake , 2000, Nature.

[17]  P. Reasenberg,et al.  Response of Regional Seismicity to the Static Stress Change Produced by the Loma Prieta Earthquake , 1992, Science.

[18]  S. Wesnousky Crustal deformation processes and the stability of the Gutenberg-Richter relationship , 1999, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

[19]  J. Dieterich A constitutive law for rate of earthquake production and its application to earthquake clustering , 1994 .

[20]  Ruth A. Harris,et al.  Introduction to Special Section: Stress Triggers, Stress Shadows, and Implications for Seismic Hazard , 1998 .

[21]  A. Barka,et al.  Slip distribution along the North Anatolian fault associated with the large earthquakes of the period 1939 to 1967 , 1996, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

[22]  Anderson,et al.  Active faults in the Sea of Marmara, western Turkey, imaged by seismic reflection profiles , 1999 .

[23]  J. Dieterich,et al.  Stress transferred by the 1995 Mw = 6.9 Kobe, Japan, shock: Effect on aftershocks and future earthquake probabilities , 1998 .

[24]  N. N. Ambraseys,et al.  Long‐term seismicity of Istanbul and of the Marmara Sea region , 1991 .

[25]  P. Reasenberg,et al.  Stress sensitivity of fault seismicity: A comparison between limited‐offset oblique and major strike‐slip faults , 1999 .

[26]  Yosihiko Ogata,et al.  Estimating the hazard of rupture using uncertain occurrence times of paleoearthquakes , 1999 .

[27]  H. Kahle,et al.  GPS and geologic estimates of the tectonic activity in the Marmara Sea region, NW Anatolia , 1997 .