Rosenstiel School researcher comments on devastating earthquake in Turkey

Falk Amelung, a professor of marine geosciences at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science:

Monday’s earthquake and the powerful aftershock that followed were “left-lateral strike-slip earthquakes as expected for the East Anatolian Fault, which is the boundary between the Arabian plate and the Anatolian plate,” he said. “Another earthquake a few hours after a big one is not a surprise. It was either an aftershock or an event of a nearby fault triggered by stress changes from the first one. The recorded seismicity suggests the latter, but we will have to wait for more data to come in to be sure.” 

Amelung said seismologists will also study the fault segment further south. “In a couple of days, when the first InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) data are available, we will have a better idea which fault segment ruptured, which will be critical to assess the time-evolving seismic hazards along the fault.”