EESC 1060, Module 6
Earthquakes on the N Anatolian Fault System
Earthquakes on the North Anatolian Fault System
Introduction
Imagine you are part of a team of scientists sent by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to Turkey to
investigate the hazard of earthquakes along the North Anatolian Fault System (NAF). As a geoscientist, your goal
is to address key questions, including:
●
Where do earthquakes occur?
●
Is there some information we could use to forecast the location of the next event? ●
What should we be planning for next?
Part 1: The Data
People have lived in Turkey for millennia with a rich set of historical writings and records of events. These
historical accounts of disasters, and in some cases, the actual destruction of towns leading to refugee
migrations, provide an unusually long record of earthquake occurrence. In this part of the activity, we will be
plotting the amount of the fault that slipped from events throughout the 1900’s and trying to forecast the
location of future events.
Just looking at the data included in a table, it is difficult to see if there is any information to glean from it. To help
us organize the data, we will be plotting the events from the data set into a format that would help us visualize
the information more effectively. Data Set 1
Date (years)
Start and end positions (km) of the fault slip (parallel to fault)
Data source/type
1967
-410 / -330
Historical Account + Geo mapping
1957
-335 / -305
Historical Account + Geo mapping
1951
-195 / -130
Historical Account + Geo mapping
1944
-305 / -130
Historical Account + Geo mapping
1943
-130 / 140
Historical Account + Geo mapping
1942
155 / 185
Historical Account + Geo mapping
