EGU23-14343
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-14343
EGU General Assembly 2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Paleoseismicity of Northern Cyprus, implications from coastal geomorphology and geochronology

Cengiz Yildirim1, Daniel Melnick2, Okan Tüysüz1, Cevza Damla Altınbaş1, Julius Jara-Munoz3, Konstantinos Tsanakas4, Orkan Özcan1, and Manfred Strecker5
Cengiz Yildirim et al.
  • 1istanbul Tekhnical University, Eurasia Institute of Earth Sciences, Solid Earth, Istanbul, Turkey (cyildirim@itu.edu.tr)
  • 2Instituto de Ciencias de la Tierra, TAQUACh, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia 5111430, Chile.
  • 3Hochschule Biberach Biberach University of Applied Sciences Karlstraße 6-11 88400 Biberach Germany
  • 4Department of Geography, Harokopio University of Athens, Athens, GR-17671 Athens, Greece.
  • 5Institut für Geowissenschaften, Universität Potsdam, Campus Golm, 14476 Potsdam, Deutschland.

The Cyprus Arc is one of the major sources of earthquakes in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. There is limited large-magnitude earthquake activity during the instrumental period. Still, archeoseismological data imply the occurrence of large-magnitude earthquakes that hit the island and gave rise to casualties and destructions. Nevertheless, these data are insufficient to give information about the source of the earthquakes. In this study, we focussed on coastal geomorphology to unravel paleoseismic activity, at least generated by near offshore faults, that released sufficient seismic energy to deform the shoreline in Holocene.

We mapped coseismically uplifted abrasion platforms, tidal notches, fish tanks and a surface rupture implying active near offshore faults in Holocene. The elevation of paleo shorelines varies between 0.4 m to 3 m above sea level, indicating multiple occurrences of paleo earthquakes. Our radiocarbon 14C ages from biological markers (algal rims, etc) indicate that the coseismic uplift of the shoreline starts from 4,5 ka to 1.2 ka BP.

The ages of the paleoearthquakes display non-uniform spatial distribution and show migration of paleoearthquakes from west to east, especially along the island's northern coast. This study is supported by Istanbul Technical University Research Fund (Project No: 37548) and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany.

How to cite: Yildirim, C., Melnick, D., Tüysüz, O., Altınbaş, C. D., Jara-Munoz, J., Tsanakas, K., Özcan, O., and Strecker, M.: Paleoseismicity of Northern Cyprus, implications from coastal geomorphology and geochronology, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-14343, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-14343, 2023.