What do you know about the recent devastating earthquake that struck Turkey?

In the early morning of February 6, a devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey, near the border with Syria. Several aftershocks followed, the strongest of which roughly rivaled the strength of the main earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.5. By evening, the death toll had risen to more than 3,700 in both countries, according to Reuters, and is expected to continue to rise.

Most of Turkey lies on a small tectonic plate sandwiched between two slowly colliding giants: the vast Eurasian plate in the north and the Arabian plate in the south. As these two plates push together, Turkey is compressed laterally, like a watermelon seed snapped between two fingers, says seismologist Susan Hough of the USGS.

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The entire country is surrounded by fault zones, or lateral slips: the North Anatolian Rift which runs roughly parallel to the Black Sea, and the East Anatolian Rift, near the border with Syria. As a result, Turkey is very seismically active. However, Monday’s earthquake, which occurred in the East Anatolian Fault, was the strongest to hit the region since 1939, when a 7.8-magnitude quake killed 30,000 people.

Science News spoke with Hough, who is based in Pasadena, Calif., about the earthquake, aftershocks, and building codes. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

CN: You say on Twitter that this was a strong slip fault earthquake. Can you explain?

Hogg: The world has seen larger earthquakes. Subduction zones generate the largest earthquakes, with a magnitude of 9 (SN: 1/13/21). But earthquakes close to magnitude 8 are not uncommon for slip faults. But since they’re on the ground and tend to be shallow, you can get sharply…shaken near the crack that’s moving.

SN: Some of the aftershocks were very strong, with magnitudes of 7.5 and 6.7. Is this unusual?

Hough: As with a lot of things, there is what is expected on average, and there is what is possible. On average, the largest aftershocks are a whole unit smaller than the main shock. But this is just an average; For any single main shock, the largest aftershock can have a lot of variance.

The other thing people have noticed is the distance [between the main shock and some aftershocks over a hundred kilometers away]. Aftershock as an imprecise term. What an aftershock is is not something that is always clear to seismologists. The fault that caused the main shock is 200 kilometers long, and this will change the pressure in many areas. Mostly relieves stress, but increases stress in some areas. So you can have children along that bug, but also a distance away. It’s a little unusual, but I’ve never heard of it.

SEKEM News: People wondered if Monday’s magnitude 3 earthquake near Buffalo, New York, might be relevant.

Hogg: Magnitude 7.8 earthquake generates [seismic] Waves you can record all over the Earth, so technically they’re disrupting every point on the Earth. So it’s not an entirely outlandish idea, but it’s statistically unlikely. Perhaps if a seismic wave passed through a fault that was ready to go in the right direction, it could.

it’s interesting [and completely separate] The idea is that you might get earthquakes around the perimeter of the Great Lakes [such as near Buffalo] Because as lake levels go up and down, you’re stressing the Earth’s crust, and you’re putting weight on one side or the other. This is a source of tension that can cause you to have these very small earthquakes.

SEKEM: The images that emerge from this deadly disaster are devastating.

Hogg: It’s hard to watch. It stresses the importance of building codes. One of the problems any place has is that building codes are getting better with time, and you always have the problem of aging structures. Retrofitting is really expensive. I expect that earthquake engineers will look at the damage, and they will highlight weaknesses [in the area]. The hope is that with proper engineering, we can make the built environment safe.

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