Structural and morphotectonics characteristics of northeastern part of Uluova fault zone

Turkey is located on important earthquake zone of the the world. Dextral strike slip North Anatolian Fault System (NAFS) and sinistral strike slip East Anatolian Fault System (EAFS) are bounded the Anatolian plate/ plateet and destructive earthquakes have occured on these fault systems in 20. and 21. centruries. Uluova Fault Zone (UFZ) which is subject of this study, is a part of East Anatolian Fault System which is a mega shear zone between the Anatolian plate/ plateet in the northwest and African-Arabian plates in the southwest. Uluova Fault Zone is a sinistral strike slip fault zone, and has NE-SW direction. NW-trending dextral strike slip faults are conguate faults in the UFZ. Sinistral and dextral strike slip faults are bounded the blocks, and the anti clockwise rotation of these blocks cause the basin formation. In the result of detailed mapping, Uluova Fault Zone are separeted fault and/or fault sets. These are: Konakalmaz Fault Set (KFS) which is a general trending of E-W sinistral strike slip fault set and able to watched until 16 km; çme Fault Set (FS) which is in the same trending with East Anatolian Fault System main breaking and able to watched until 30 km; Yukarıbag Fault (YF) is general trending of NW-SE and 11 km long dextral strike slip fault; Koçkale Fault (KF) which is a general trending of NW-SW and 7 km long dextral strike slip fault. Morphotectonic chracteristic features of study area show that the faults comprising Uluova Fault Zone has both strike slip and normal componenets. When the bend in the stream valleys are taken into consideration the biggest sinistral strike slip has been determined as 2 km. If we assume the East Anatolian Fault System and Uluova Fault Zone which is a part of it is 2 million years old, slip-rate is found out as 1 mm/yr. The earthquakes which occured in Uluova Fault Zone during 2005-2007 and their intensity changing between 2,7 and 4,2 prove that the fault zone is active. When the length of the faults is taken into consideration, it is thought that they can not cause big earthquakes. Key Words: Uluova Fault Zone, East Anatolian Fault System, active fault, earthquake.