Abstract
THE Thessaloniki region suffered from damaging seismic activity during the summer of 1978. During both major shocks that took place on the 24 May (M, 5.5) and 20 June (M, 6.5), manifestations of faulting could be observed in the epicentral areas. They showed that the continental crust is stretching out in this region. Measurement of slips on the active faults make it possible to compute the direction of traction (165°N) in the crust. These active faults show close kinematic similarities to previously neotectonically defined faults of Recent Quaternary age (after 400,000 yr) within the same region. Thus, study of Recent neotectonic faults often gives a correct prediction of the direction of possible slipping on faults which could be activated by earthquakes in the same region. We show here that a quantitative study of active and neotectonic faults demonstrates that in this intracontinental situation faulting deformation is satisfactorily explained with a model of continuous deformation.
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MERCIER, J., MOUYARIS, N., SIMEAKIS, C. et al. Intra-plate deformation: a quantitative study of the faults activated by the 1978 Thessaloniki earthquakes. Nature 278, 45–48 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1038/278045a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/278045a0
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