The determination of relations between statistical seismicity data and geodetic strain analysis, and the analysis of seismic hazard in southwest Anatolia

Abstract

This study aims the relations between seismicity data and strain analysis based on geodetic space techniques in order to define the seismicity hazard of the southwest Anatolian region of Turkey. This region has complex tectonic formations and requires sophisticated techniques and approaches to investigate seismic activities. In this study, global navigation satellite system (GNSS) observations were used to determine the velocity field of the region. The strain rates of the region were obtained from the evaluation of this velocity field. In addition, seismicity b parameters of the region were calculated from the analysis of seismicity data. Furthermore, the seismicity data and the geodetic strain rates obtained from the GNSS observations were combined to show the statistical correlation. This correlation was interpreted to define the seismicity. According to the results derived from the correlation analysis, the geodetic strain analysis and seismicity data were highly and inversely correlated (r = −0.96). After the determination of the correlation, the seismic hazard data of the region was added to the analysis. This process shows that seismic hazards are highly and negatively correlated to seismicity data (r = −0.90), even though they are highly but positively correlated to geodetic strain analysis (r = 0.88).