Faulting associated with historical and recent earthquakes in the Eastern Mediterranean region

Abstract

SUMMARY This paper summarizes evidence for surface faulting in historical and recent earthquakes in the Eastern Mediterranean region and in the Middle East. Such information is particularly important for studies of active tectonics and for palaeoseismology. We have found 78 cases of faulting pre-1900 and 72 post-1900, some of which show that faults that have apparently been inactive this century had already ruptured before 1900. For some cases faulting could not have been predicted from 20th century activity, and in others it could have been expected, but has not been observed during the instrumental period. The data are suYcient to allow the derivation of relationships between magnitude and rupture length.