Creep-dilatancy development at a transform plate boundary.

How tectonic plates slip slowly and episodically along their boundaries, is a major, open question in earthquake science. Here, we use offshore in-situ sediment pore-pressure acquired in the proximity of the active offshore Main Marmara Fault and onshore geodetic time-series data set from a single GPS station to demonstrate the pore-pressure/deformation coupling during a 10-month slow-slip event. We show that pore pressure fluctuations are the expression of hydro-mechanical process affecting the deep seismogenic zone and indicate that small disturbances in geodetic data may have important meaning in terms of transient deformations.

Interseismic strain build-up on the submarine North Anatolian Fault offshore Istanbul.

Using offshore geodetic observations, we show that a segment of the North Anatolian Fault in the central Sea of Marmara is locked and therefore accumulating strain. The strain accumulation along this fault segment was previously extrapolated from onshore observations or inferred from the absence of seismicity, but both methods could not distinguish between fully locked or fully creeping fault behavior. A network of acoustic transponders measured crustal deformation with mm-precision on the seafloor for 2.

Gas and seismicity within the Istanbul seismic gap.

Understanding micro-seismicity is a critical question for earthquake hazard assessment. Since the devastating earthquakes of Izmit and Duzce in 1999, the seismicity along the submerged section of North Anatolian Fault within the Sea of Marmara (comprising the "Istanbul seismic gap") has been extensively studied in order to infer its mechanical behaviour (creeping vs locked). So far, the seismicity has been interpreted only in terms of being tectonic-driven, although the Main Marmara Fault (MMF) is known to strike across multiple hydrocarbon gas sources.