the impact of plate tectonics

The images are striking. Displacements of the ground show the force of the violent earthquake and its aftershocks which mourned Turkey and Syria on February 6. The deformations of the ground make it possible to see with the naked eye the extent of the movements of the tectonic plate.

► A huge fault seen from the sky

Several ground failures were caused by the earthquake in the area. The fault is said to have slipped more than nine meters in places following the magnitude 7.8 earthquake on the East Anatolian fault.

This comparison of two satellite images, taken before and after the tremors, shows a landslide hundreds of meters long, near Nuraghi, in the southern province of Gaziantep, Turkey.

Newly available Maxar satellite imagery shows several hundred meters long surface rupture with horizontal displacements up to 4m near Nurdağı, Gaziantep province, Turkey. pic.twitter.com/3JVZTTHrk1

— Nahel Belgherze (@WxNB_) February 9, 2023

► Deformed rails and cut roads

In Kahramanmaras, the epicenter of the disaster in southern Turkey, the road is cut and the railway line twisted after the two continental blocks slipped against each other.

During the #earthquake main in #Turkey, the horizontal slip on the transform fault (which broke over more than 200 km) reached 3 to 6 m! Plate tectonics in action 🫤 pic.twitter.com/1j4237zXLU

— CATastrophesNATurelles.net (@catnatnet) February 8, 2023

► A canyon in the middle of a field

A gigantic field of olive trees in the Turkish province of Hatay, on the Syrian border, is now cut in two. The earthquake created a huge gap several kilometers long, reaching 30 meters deep and 200 meters wide in places.

Turkey-Syria #earthquake opened 30 metre deep, 100m+ wide rift along fault line in Hatay, Turkey
Olive groves split in twopic.twitter.com/5b7luttp8h

— Prof Ray Wills (@ProfRayWills) February 12, 2023

►Cracked surfaces

Surface rupture at Hassa Town. #earthquake#earthquakepic.twitter.com/klsw2zesYj

— OzdemirAlpay (@geodesist_a) February 8, 2023

In Hassa, a Turkish city in Hatay Province, the fault line runs through fields and roads, shifted by the force of moving tectonic plates. The displacement is measured in meters along the fault.

---

Source

---