Recent tectonic features of the central part (Bolu-Corum) of the North Anatolian Fault

Abstract

After the 1999 Izmit and Düzce earthquakes, the earth science studies increase on the NAF to better understand mechanism and to monitor the motion of it. Monitoring such motion can be achieved by the instrumental tools or techniques like GPS, InSAR, LIDAR, creep meter, etc. The GPS observations showed that while the NW-SE trending section of the NAF between Karlıova and Vezirköprü has nearly strike slip mechanism, the NE-SW trending section of the NAF between Vezirköprü and Bolu has transpressive character. While the fault-parallel velocities have been estimated from just a few GPS vectors available in the region, little is known about the fault-perpendicular component of the regional velocity. The rate of conversion and how it varies along strike are not known due to the sparsely distributed GPS benchmarks in the region. At the same time, the aseismic fault creep determined using InSAR has needed to proof and improve by other techniques and tools. For this propose the new project has been started to determine quantitatively the rate of convergence and its variation along segment of the NAF between Bolu and Çorum. In this study, we focus on the Bolu-Çorum segment of the NAFZ using GPS technique. The main aim of this study is determination of creep rate with geodetic measurements and combination of the data obtained from seismology, geodesy and geophysics to understand fault mechanism. Therefore, in this paper we discuss tectonic phenomena on the central part of the NAFZ and present the first results of the project