The tension building along an active fault line near Istanbul’s Princes’
Islands is powerful enough to create a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, the
results of a three-year-long European Union-supported project led by
Boğaziçi University’s Kandilli Observatory have revealed.
The
project, called MARSite, defined the Marmara Sea as one of the most
risk-prone regions around the Mediterranean Sea and put in place a wide
range of comprehensive monitoring activities in both the Marmara Sea and
its surrounding urban and rural regions.
Data from different
scientific disciplines was collected and coordinated to develop
consistent models predicting the extent of risks posed by fault lines in
the area.
“An infrastructure was built that is capable of
effectively monitoring all sorts of data that might be used for
earthquake analysis in parts of the world with similar tectonic
problems,” MARSite Project Coordinator Prof. Nurcan Meral Özel was
quoted as saying by Cihan News Agency during a June 20 press conference
organized to share the research’s findings.
As part of efforts
to detect underground tension, a deep well system was designed and
placed directly inside an active fault line, 150 meters below ground, in
the Şarköy district of northwestern Tekirdağ province.
The
Marmara Sea fault line was monitored without interruption for three
years and over 30 studies were published based on data acquired from the
measurements.
According to the findings of the $8-billion
project, very high tension has built up near the Princes’ Islands, an
archipelago off the coast of Istanbul in the Sea of Marmara, powerful
enough to create a 7.0 magnitude earthquake.
The tension is even
higher than the degree measured ahead of the deadly 1999 earthquake in
Turkey’s northwestern province of Kocaeli, which killed at least 17,000
people, according to Özel.
On the other hand, the North
Anatolian Fault is made up of smaller pieces, hence a rupture would not
be a big one emanating from a single point, the professor added.
Özel
said the project also monitored earthquake-related risks to the
Marmaray, a tunnel below the Bosphorus which connects Istanbul’s
European and Asian sides, and to the natural gas distribution system
which serves some 5.3 million consumers.
The possibility of a
potential tsunami in the Marmara Sea was also evaluated and an early
warning system was developed, the project coordinator added.
The
City Risk Index 2015-2025 prepared by Lloyd’s, the world’s leading
market for specialist insurance and reinsurance, reported a 65 percent
chance of a 7.0 magnitude or higher earthquake in Istanbul in the next
30 years.