[Island Chris]

There was a M6.9 a bit more than a day ago on the North Aegean Trough, which is formed by the north Branch of the North Anatolian fault, which is the same fault as the one that passes about 15 km south of Istanbul, a few hundred km to the east. I left Rhode Island for the first time in 6 months to visit family in Philadelphia, so was not in home office, looked at focal mechanism, and then flipped it in my brain and sent email to some scientists that I work with on this fault and said it was left-lateral, a backwards earthquake, which makes not sense for one that large. So, I had to send a later email to correct that before they thought I was too clueless. The part of that fault branch to the east, from eastern Saros Gulf across the connection of Gallipoli peninsula, last had a deadly earthquake in 1912. A paper published a couple months ago (I am a co-author, but disagree with certain things) suggests the next part east, in Central Basin Marmara Sea, has not had a major quake for 700 or 800 years. That is very long for a fault accumulating strain at ~18 mm/yr.

Chris


http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/e...hc#summary