Eastern Mediterranean continental collision: The role of the Fethiye-Burdur fault zone in the neotectonic evolution of SW Turkey

• Applicant: Dr. Johan H. ten Veen
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2006 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 34752586

In this renewal proposal we describe the first results of an integrated basin analysis of the Esen Basin in the southern part of the Fethiye-Burdur Fault Zone (FBFZ) in southwestern Turkey. This research seeks for faulting-related and earthquake-related deformation from different observational time scales, i.e., the geological, historical and present-day time scales. We use(d) the tectonosedimentary record to define deformation phases and applied fault kinematic analysis to deduce paleostress fields. An archeoseimsological inventory of damage structures in a Hellenistic – Roman theatre could be sustained by high-resolution LIDAR measurements. The obtained 3D digital model of the theatre enables measuring and calculating – using various spatial analysis programs – its deformation (e.g. tilting, dislocations, cracks) on sub-centimetre scale. The presence of active faults could be further established with GPR profiling, showing fault offsets in the youngest Quaternary alluvium. Ongoing research activities focus on paleoseismological trenching of the fault zones that were detected in the GPR profiles. Finally all strain data will be combined and tested against the present-day plate-tectonics models, supplemented with a GPS modelling approach that enable validation of field-based tectonic (strain) models. The outcome will improve the understanding of the tectonic complexity of this important region, has specific implications for insights in plate-margin deformation processes and a high societal relevance (earthquake risk assessments) in general.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Adrian Immenhauser