Extreme “Catapult” ruptures of the Çardak Fault in the 6 February 2023 Mw 7.6 earthquake in Türkiye

Abstract

<title>Abstract</title><p>During a Mw 7.6 magnitude earthquake on the Çardak Fault, extreme sinistral displacements occurred along 10 segments representing a 98 km-long surface rupture. The length of the segments ranges between 3.5 and 23.0 km. The surface rupture of the earthquake extends along a narrow deformation zone that is at least 10 cm-wide in places. In the step-over zones of the segments, the coseismic slip is distributed on numerous echelon ruptures where ≥0.5 m of left-lateral displacement is measured in a 1.3 km-wide zone and occasionally becomes completely undetectable. The most important feature of this earthquake is the measured maximum left-lateral displacement along the 98 km-long surface rupture, making it one of the seven earthquakes in the literature with the most extreme displacement (10.0-12.6 m), considering the earthquake magnitudes and fault lengths observed during the instrumental period.</p>