Knidos fay zonu'nun deprem geçmişini klor-36 yüzey yaş tayini yöntemiyle modelleme

Knidos is an ancient city, which is located in the south of Gulf of Gökova in Western Anatolia. The Knidos Fault Zone is situated in ancient settlement ruins on the Datça Peninsula. The recent geological and archaeological evidences point out that this ancient site has been affected by at least two crucial momentous seismic events. In the light of this information, we have carried out cosmogenic 36Cl dating in order to obtain information about the seismic history of the Knidos Fault Zone. Using cosmic-ray surface exposure dating of a well-preserved limestone fault scarp facilitates us to attain information, which reveals a seismic history of faulting events and identifies timing and recurrence interval of past major earthquakes, and slip rates of the Knidos Fault Zone. There are two distinct faults located in the study area; those are the Demeter Fault and the Mezarlık Fault. I have chosen to aim at the Mezarlık Fault on account of that it has well-preserved fault scarp. The concentration of cosmogenic 36Cl isotopes measured in 128 limestone samples from a ~15m high bedrock fault scarp helps us to reveal the fault displacement history of the Knidos fault, in the Western Turkey. Although this method can cause breakthrough to the recent studies in earth science, there are plenty of limitations and uncertainties to deal with. The important factors are latitude and air pressure (elevation) scaling factors for a constant geomagnetic field, shielding resulting from the specific geometry of active normal faults, effects of the chemical composition of the colluvial wedge, effects of denudation of the scarp surface and snow cover effects on scarp shielding. Through the modelling of the cosmogenic 36Cl nuclides, it can be understood that Mezarlık Fault might be post-glacial as a result of previous studies implied in the similar fault scarps in the Mediterranean. As oppose to all of these limitations, it has been tried to understand impacts of these factors on the target fault by using recent numerical models. I have set out to obtain accurate conclusion through correlate and compare the result with synthetic profiles and previous studies as much as possible. The slip histories modelled via concentrations of 36Cl indicate that at least three or more events occurred on the Mezarlık fault within the past 20 kyr; over 10 meters of displacement took place between early Holocene and late Pleistocene. This study was conducted with the Decision of the Council of Ministers with No. 2013/5387 on the date 30.09.2013 and was done with the permission of Knidos Presidency of excavation in accordance with the scope of Knidos Excavation and Research carried out on behalf of Selçuk University and Ministry of Culture and Tourism. This study was supported by the TÜBİTAK (Project No: 113Y436).