Source Process of the 24 January 2020 Mw 6.7 East Anatolian Fault Zone, Turkey, Earthquake

Abstract

Abstract The 24 January 2020 Mw 6.7 earthquake in eastern Turkey was due to the reactivation of the strike-slip faulting between the Arabian and Anatolian plates. To gain insight into the source regime and its relationship with historical earthquakes, we determined the coseismic slip distribution of this event by joint analyses of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar and teleseismic observations. Inversion results indicate that the main rupture asperity occurred in the southwest of the epicenter with a maximum slip of ∼1.9 m, showing a bilateral source process with an average rupture velocity of ∼1.6 km/s, and small slip extended to the surface near the epicenter. The estimated seismic moment is 1.4×1019 N·m, associated with a ∼50 km long and ∼15 km wide fault plane. The aftershocks distribution is obviously complementary with the coseismic rupture zone. That is, the majority of aftershocks clustered in the transitional regions from the large to small slip areas. The 2020 earthquake only ruptured part of the locked zone and could increase the seismic activity in the East Anatolian fault zone during the interseismic phase. Two verified seismic gaps remain unbroken and hazardous.