Speaking after the opening remarks, Prof. Dr. Görür noted that Adıyaman is located at the beginning of the Bitlis-Zagros Thrust Belt and that this belt accumulated stress during the February 6 earthquakes.
Stating that there is a large plate passing through the north of Adıyaman and that these earthquake-generating plates are constantly moving, Naci Görür said, “Adıyaman is situated very close to a plate boundary.
Therefore, this fault, the East Anatolian Fault, will certainly produce an earthquake when its time comes. Now, how often does it produce an earthquake? Its recurrence period is once every 500 years. It produces an earthquake every 500 years. Every 500 years, the area from Karlıova to Antakya and Syria has been leveled.
"ADIYAMAN DID NOT EXPERIENCE ITS OWN EARTHQUAKE"
It was built, leveled again, and built again. Adıyaman did not experience its own earthquake. You felt your neighbor's earthquake. Where did that earthquake come from? Because this East Anatolian Fault broke, and because you were close, you felt it. It destroyed you too because you are nearby.
However, when an earthquake occurs, when a fault breaks, it transfers 20 percent of the energy within it to unbroken faults or neighboring faults.
Now, consider that when this fault broke, it released energy equivalent to the simultaneous explosion of exactly 5 million tons of dynamite. A massive amount of energy. Now, a significant portion of this energy was loaded onto the Bitlis-Zagros Belt, which is in its immediate vicinity.
What does this mean? It means it has brought forward the period for an earthquake to occur in this belt. In other words, while it might have produced an earthquake in 300-500 years, it may have brought it forward to 50 years because extra energy was loaded onto it,” he said.
News Source: İHA
