30 Ooctober 2020 Samos-Sigacik Earthquake: On Strong Ground Motion and Local Site Amplification

The Mw 6.9 earthquake that took place offshore between the Greek island of Samos and Turkey’s İzmir province on 30 October 2020 came hardly as a surprise. Due to the extensional tectonic regime of the Aegean and high deformation rates, earthquakes of similar size frequently occur in the Aegean Sea on fault segments close to the shores of Turkey, affecting the settlements on mainland Turkey and on the Greek Islands. Samos-Sigacik earthquake had a normal faulting mechanism. It was recorded by the strong motion networks in Turkey and Greece. Although expected, the earthquake was an  outstanding event in the sense of  highly localized, significant levels of building damage as a result of amplified ground motion levels. This presentation is an overview of strong ground motion characteristics of this important event both regionally and locally. Mainshock records suggest that local site effects, enhanced by basin effects could be responsible for structural damage in central Izmir, the third largest city of Turkey located at 60-70 km epicentral distance. We installed a seven-station network in Bayraklı and Karşıyaka districts of İzmir within three days of the mainshock in search of site and basin effects.  Through analysis of recorded aftershocks we explore the amplification characeristics of soils in the two aforementioned districts  and try to understand the role basin effects might have played in the resulting ground motion levels and consequently damage.