Recent Findings on the 2023 Kahramanmaraş Earthquakes

Recent findings of the research conducted under the leadership of Istanbul Technical University and Peking University on the 2023 Kahramanmaraş Earthquakes were published in the world-renowned Science journal.

The international research team, established under the leadership of academics from Istanbul Technical University (ITU) and Peking University (PKU), two higher education institutions with the most established geophysics programs in Türkiye and China, published in an article the groundbreaking results they obtained in the joint research they conducted to obtain the current findings on the 2023 Kahramanmaraş Earthquakes, the largest continental earthquake doublet ever recorded with modern seismological observations, and to examine the rupture process of the earthquake and the triggering mechanisms that led to the destructive ruptures of the entire fault system in the Science journal under the title “Supershear Triggering and Cascading Fault Ruptures of the 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye Earthquake Doublet.” The article prepared with the contributions of our academics Prof. Dr. Tuncay Taymaz and Res. Asst. Ceyhun Erman sheds light on the formation mechanism of the February 6, 2023 earthquakes.

Academic Cooperation in ITU’s “Year of Global Impact”

The results which include the findings of the computational seismology research conducted under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Tuncay Taymaz from ITU Department of Geophysical Engineering and PKU Department of Geophysics faculty members Prof. Dr. Han Yue and Prof. Dr. Xiaodong Song together with the participation of doctoral students from the world’s leading universities by using high-performance computers, were published in an article titled “Supershear Triggering and Cascading Fault Ruptures of the 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye, Earthquake Doublet,” on January 19, 2024 in the Science journal, one of the world’s top scientific journals according to the H5 index.

Click to read the article that analyzes the spatial-temporal evolution of the 2023 Kahramanmaraş Earthquakes including the 3-dimensional rupture model, rupture kinematics of fault segments, dynamic stress state and the triggering process of big earthquakes.

Impactful scientific publications on the Kahramanmaraş Earthquakes

Impactful outcomes of the studies previously conducted by the research team, which also includes Prof. Dr. Taymaz, on February 6, Kahramanmaraş Earthquakes were published in the world-renowned Nature in article form. In addition to the article titled “Geometric Controls on Cascading Rupture of the 2023 Kahramanmaraş Earthquake Doublet” published in Nature Geoscience, another publication titled “Complex Multi-fault Rupture and Triggering During the 2023 Earthquake Doublet in Southeastern Türkiye” published in Nature Communications shed light on the scientific phenomena underlying the natural disaster.