Tectonic Summary
The November 23, 2022, M 6.1 earthquake near Düzce, Turkey occurred as the result of strike-slip faulting at shallow depth, within the crust. Focal mechanism solutions for the event indicate that rupture occurred on either a moderately-dipping right-lateral fault striking west-southwest, or a steeply-dipping left-lateral strike-slip fault striking north-northwest. The location, depth, and focal mechanism of the earthquake are consistent with the east-west trending, right-lateral North Anatolian Fault.
The North Anatolian Fault accommodates much of the right-lateral horizontal motion (23-24 mm/yr) between the Anatolian micro-plate and Eurasian plate as the Anatolian micro-plate is being pushed westward to further accommodate closure of the Mediterranean basin caused by the collision of the African and Arabian plates in southeastern Turkey. At the location of this earthquake, the Arabian plate moves north-northwest at a velocity of about 17 mm/yr
relative to the Eurasian plate.
While commonly plotted as points on maps, earthquakes of this size are more appropriately described as slip over a larger fault area. Strike-slip faults of the size of the November 23, 2022, earthquake are typically about 17 km x 8 km in size (length x width).
The North Anatolian Fault experiences a high level of earthquake activity. In the 50 years prior, there have been thirteen other earthquakes of magnitude 5.5 and larger within 250 km of the November 23, 2022 event. The largest was a M 7.6 earthquake on August 17, 1999, located about 95 km to the east. Three M 7 or larger earthquakes have occurred within 25 km of this earthquake, the most recent being a M 7.2 on November 12, 1999.
FULL INFORMATION AT: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000irp8/executive
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