High-resolution imaging of the North Anatolian Fault Zone in the broader Marmara region from near-fault seismic recordings

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The North Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ) is the most active plate-bounding strike-slip fault in Europe and has produced numerous large devastating earthquakes in historic times. A series of large earthquakes starting in 1912 has activated the entire 1200km-long fault zone except for the Marmara section that is located in direct vicinity to the 15-million population center of Istanbul and currently overdue for a M>7 event.We aim at imaging the horizontal and vertical structures, identify and investigate bimaterial interfaces and low-velocity damage at the NAFZ in NW Turkey using Fault Zone Head Waves along with trapped and reflected waves, direct body waves and near-fault anisotropy. The results will substantially contribute to an improved seismic hazard assessment for this key region based on refined determination of the relevant fault-zone structure and physics along the NAFZ. We will also apply a recently introduced passive imaging technique that allows making use of converted phases and their inversion together with synthetic waveforms. Our study will focus on three key sections of the NAFZ in the Marmara region, (1) the Princes Island segment below the eastern Sea of Marmara where the ICDP-driven GONAF observatory has recently been implemented, (2) the Ganos fault further to the west that last ruptured in a M7.4 earthquake in 1912, and (3) the combined Izmit-Düzce rupture that produced two consecutive M>7 earthquakes in 1999. We will make use of extensively seismic waveform recordings that are either already available (Princes Islands segment, Izmit-Düzce) or will be acquired in the frame of a scheduled field campaign (Ganos).The high-resolution fault-zone images to be obtained in the here proposed study are expected to contribute to fundamental aspects of earthquake and fault dynamics on the NAFZ, including the mode and propagation direction of earthquake ruptures, triggering and effective constitutive laws. In particular the results will also provide a detailed characterization and subsequent seismic hazard for the easternmost portion of the Marmara section of the NAFZ that is expected to produce a major (M>7) earthquake in the near future.