Daily to centennial behavior of aseismic slip along the central section
of the North Anatolian Fault
Abstract
Slow, aseismic slip plays a crucial role in the initiation, propagation
and arrest of large earthquakes along active faults. In addition,
aseismic slip controls the budget of elastic strain in the crust, hence
the amount of energy available for upcoming earthquakes. The conditions
for slow slip include specific material properties of the fault zone,
pore fluid pressure and geometrical complexities of the fault plane.
Fine scale descriptions of aseismic slip at the surface and at depth are
key to determine the factors controlling the occurrence of slow,
aseismic versus rapid, seismic fault slip. We focus on the spatial and
temporal distribution of aseismic slip along the North Anatolian Fault,
the plate boundary accommodating the 2 cm/yr of relative motion between
Anatolia and Eurasia. Along the eastern termination of the rupture trace
of the 1944 M7.3 Bolu-Gerede earthquake lies a segment that slips
aseismically since at least the 1950’s. We use Sentinel 1 time series of
displacement and GNSS data to provide a spatio-temporal description of
the kinematics of fault slip. We show that aseismic slip observed at the
surface is coincident with a shallow locking depth and that slow slip
events with a return period of 2.5 years are restricted to a specific
section of the fault. In the light of historical measurements, we
discuss potential rheological implications of our results and propose a
simple alternative model to explain the local occurrence of shallow
aseismic slip at this location.