Identification of the block movements and stress zones in Southwestern Anatolia with GNSS measurements

Crustal deformation monitoring studies have been one of the most popular topic for the researchers from various disciplines for long time. One of the major natural events due to the crustal deformation are the earthquakes. The studies on the prediction of the earthquakes have been increased during the last century. It is possible to predict the location of the earthquakes by computing the stress concentration on the seismic faults if those are instrumented with the deformation observation equipments but still lacks of predicting the time of the occurence. The development of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) measurement systems had been in advantage of not only the geodezy but also earth related sciences. Starting from 1980?s, GNSS has been incrementally favored instead of the conventional measurement techniques.In this study, a series of GNSS observations were conducted with the aim of determining the block movements and stress concentrations within SouthWest Anatolia. After establishing a tectonic GNSS network (SWAGNET) of 57 stations, the observations were processed in GAMIT/GLOBK to compute the velocity field of the area. In addition to that, the strain and stress concentrations were also computed by using GRID_STRAIN and ANSYS softwares.The computed results display that the stations on the Anatolian block move at a rate of 10-15±0.5mm per year relative to Eurasia. This movement locally reaches to 26-29±0.5mm per year and 31-34±0.5mm on Aegean expansion and Marmaris blocks, respectively. Besides these results, the results of the stress analysis on SouthWest Anatolia indicates the existence of consistent strains and, consequently, stresses in the vicinity of Fethiye-Burdur Fault Zone.One of the major conclusion of this study is the recommendation of the improvements on the SouthWest Anatolia Block model already available in the literature. Particularly, having revised block boundaries the improved block model, the east and west sides of Isparta angle are thorougly investigated and examined with respect to the present tectonic knowledge.