Interpretation of Low Seismicity in the Eastern Anatolian Collisional Zone Using Geophysical (Seismicity and Aeromagnetic) and Geological Data

The eastern Anatolia is a continental collisional zone between the Arabia-Eurasia plates and is currently being accompanied by the westward escape of the Anatolian crustal block to the west-southwest along two major strike-slip fault zones, the NATF and the EATF. Although these major fault zones have experienced historical earthquakes with moderate to high magnitude, notably there is a low seismicity zone on the active EATF between the Bitlis and Po¨tu¨rge massifs. The low seismicity zone is characterized by thinner crustal structure relative to its environs, the shallow Curie Point Depth (SCPD, ca 12–14 km in between 39–40 E and 38.5–39 N in the easternmost part of the Anatolian plate) and moderate to high b values (more than 0.7). We consider that the shallow CPD and moderate to high b values in the low seismicity zone characterized by thinner crustal area are closely related with the higher thermal structure of the crust, which most probably resulted from crust-hot asthenospheric mantle interactions.