Turkey-Syria earthquakes: a seismologist explains what has happened

NEW YORK - Feb. 9, 2023 - PRLog -- By: Jenny Jenkins, Durham University

An extremely large earthquake has occurred in the southeast of Turkey, near the border with Syria. Data from seismometers which measure shaking of the ground caused by earthquake waves suggest this this event, in the early morning of February 6, was a magnitude 7.8 out of 10 on the moment magnitude scale. Seismic waves were picked up by sensors around the world (you can watch them ripple through Europe) including places as far away as the UK.

This was a really big one.

The shaking caused by energy travelling outwards from the source or epicentre has already had terrible consequences for people living nearby. Many buildings have collapsed, at least 2,000 people are thought to have died across the two countries, and there are reports of damage to gas pipelines leading to fires.

A second very large earthquake of 7.5 magnitude also occurred in central Turkey around lunchtime.

Why this happened here

This area of Turkey is prone to earthquakes as it lies at the intersection of three of the tectonic plates that make up the Earth's crust: the Anatolian, Arabian and African plates. Arabia is moving northwards into Europe, causing the Anatolian plate (which Turkey sits on) to be pushed out westwards.

The movement of the tectonic plates builds up pressure on fault zones at their boundaries. It is the sudden release of this pressure that causes earthquakes and ground shaking.

This latest earthquake is likely to have happened on one of the major faults that marks the boundaries between the Anatolian and Arabian plates: either the East Anatolian fault or the Dead Sea Transform fault. These are both "strike-slip faults", which means they accommodate some motion of plates moving past each other.

https://theconversation.com/turkey-syria-earthquakes-a-se...

http://youtu.be/9l-Wi7nr-C8