Effects of the 2023 Kahramanmaraş Earthquake Sequence on the Palu Segment of the East Anatolian Fault

The East Anatolian Fault (EAF) is an approximately 420 km long sinistral strike-slip fault extending between Karlıova (Bingöl) in the northeast and Türkoğlu (Kahramanmaraş) in the southwest. The earthquake in Sivrice (Elazığ) on January 24, 2020, with a magnitude of Mw 6.8, along with the earthquakes in Pazarcık (Kahramanmaraş) on February 6, 2023, with a magnitude of Mw 7.8, and Elbistan (Kahramanmaraş) with a magnitude of Mw 7.6, has increased the seismic potential of the left-lateral strike-slip East Anatolian Fault.

This study involved a total of 12 campaign measurements conducted at a GNSS network consisting of six sites in Palu (Elâzığ) segment of EAF  between the years 2015 and 2023. The distance of the survey GNSS sites and continuous GNSS stations from the fault varies between approximately tens of meters to hundred of kilometers. Before and after the earthquakes on February 6, 2023, near field GNSS data were utilized in the analysis of crustal movements related with  the earthquakes in 2020-2023. The estimated deformation in the GNSS network campaign results between September 2021 and September 2023, varies from approximately 10 ± 2.6 mm to 40 ± 2.9 mm in Palu segment. These estimations include not only the postseismic effects of the 2020 Sivrice (Elaz) earthquake, but also the coseismic and early postseismic effects of the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquake sequence, along with ongoing shallow creep observations.