Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Aktif Tektonik Araştırma Grubu 28. Çalıştayı, Aydın, Türkiye, 5 - 07 Kasım 2025, ss.60-61, (Özet Bildiri)
Earthquakes leave primary seismo-gravitational and seismo-tectonic imprints on the crust, yet these traces are commonly obscured by subsequent geological and climatic processes. However, especially unrestored ancient structures preserve evidence of past earthquakes remarkably well. The traces conserved in such structures constitute a unique and valuable data source for understanding regional seismic activity and the characteristics of earthquake-generating active faults.
Western Anatolia occupies a unique position in terms of ancient settlements. Many sites are located along the Aegean coastal belt and within or at the margins of approximately E–W-trending structural depressions in the Western Anatolian Extensional Province (WAEP). Within present provincial boundaries of this province, there are 133 known archaeological settlements comprising cultural layers ranging from the Chalcolithic to the Ottoman period: Aydın (23), Muğla (41), Uşak (3), Denizli (6), Çanakkale (7), Manisa (13), Balıkesir (9), and İzmir (31).
From an active-tectonics perspective, the updated MTA active fault inventory (Emre et al., 2018) documents 76 faults and/or fault zones within WAEP. These active structural discontinuities are dominated by dip-slip normal faults and right-lateral strike-slip faults. Fault lengths range from ~10 to 30 km, and the magnitudes of potential earthquakes they can generate are estimated at Mw 5.8–7.2.
In this study, we evaluate the spatial relationships between known archaeological settlements and active fault zones within WAEP. Specifically, we jointly consider (i) the cultural strata represented at each settlement, (ii) their proximity to active faults, and (iii) earthquake records from the historical and, where available, instrumental periods. Subsequently, archaeoseismological investigations conducted to date within WAEP will be incorporated into a database, and a strategic action plan will be proposed to prioritize archaeological sites for future archaeoseismological work. As a result of this research, it will be possible to focus on archaeological settlements from an archaeoseismological perspective.