Eastern Turkey Seismic Experiment: Lithospheric Structure in an Active Continental Collision Zone

One of the least understood processes within the framework of plate tectonics
is the mechanisms for continent-continent collision, yet this process plays a
critical role in the development and growth of the continents on earth. This
project is aimed at understanding the mechanism of continent-continent
collision along the Eurasian-Arabian plate boundary in eastern Turkey.

To this end, we deployed a temporary 29 station broadband PASSCAL array in
eastern Turkey. In August of 1999, we began site selection and were able to
locate safe and stable sites for nearly all of the stations; all station sites
were ready for deployment in mid-September 1999. In late October and early
November of 1999, two teams of three to four people each (including two PASSCAL
engineers) deployed two stations a day. The entire array was installed in
approximately two weeks. Most stations were powered by solar panels, though six
stations located on the Anatolian plataeu and subject to rough winters were
supplied with continuous AC power.

To ensure proper operation, we visited each station two to three weeks after
installation in November 1999. Most were working well, though we did encounter
a few problems with solar panel power at the easternmost end of the array.
Using Linux laptops, we were able to perform all quality control in the field.

Earthquakes in and around the region as well as at teleseismic distances were
recorded. To ensure maximum data recovery of local, regional and teleseismic
waveforms, we recorded 24 bit broadband data continuously at 40 sps (samples
per second). Using PASSCAL's 4.1 GByte field disks and the REFTEK 72A's data
compression algorithm, we visited the stations every 3 to 4 months. The last
data were collected August 9, 2001. The data from this experiment is being
jointly analyzed by the two institutions.