Late Cenozoic stress states around the Bolu Basin along the North Anatolian Fault, NW Turkey

This study defines the Late Cenozoic stress regimes acting around the Bolu Basin along the North Anatolian Fault in northwestern Turkey. The inferred regional stress regime, obtained from the inversion of measured fault-slip vectors as well as focal mechanism solutions, is significant and induces the right-lateral displacement of the North Anatolian Fault. The field observations have also revealed extensional structures in and around the Bolu Basin. These extensional structures can be interpreted as either a local effect of the regional transtensional stress regime or as the result of the interaction of the fault geometries of the dextral Duzce Fault and the southern escarpment of the North Anatolian Fault, bordering the Bolu Basin in the north and in the south, respectively.The inversion of slip vectors measured on fault planes indicates that a strike-slip stress regime with consistent NW- and NE-trending σ_Hmax(σ₁) and σ_Hmin(σ₃) axes is dominant. Stress ratio (R) values provided by inversion of slip vectors measured on both major and minor faults and field observations show significant variations of principal stress magnitudes within the strike-slip stress regime resulting in older transpression to younger transtension. These two stress states, producing dextral displacement along NAF, are coaxial with a consistent NE-trending σ₃ axis. The earthquake focal mechanism inversions confirm that the transtensional stress regime has continued into recent times, having identical horizontal stress axis directions, characterized by NW and NE-trending σ₁ and σ₃ axes, respectively. A locally consistent NE-trending extensional, normal faulting regime is also seen in the Bolu Basin. The stress-tensor change within the strike-slip stress regime can be explained by variations in horizontal stress magnitudes that probably occurred in Quaternary times as a result of the westward extrusion of the Anatolian block.     

The paleoclimate of the eastern desert of Jordan during marine isotope stage 9

Two Cardium horizons from the topmost Azraq Formation in the eastern desert of Jordan were investigated and dated by U/Th at 330 ka; MIS 9. Fossil diversity and abundance, especially for Charophytes and gastropods with the absence of palygorskite, dolomite and evaporites, suggest the presence of a fresh water lake changing to a brackish environment at certain time intervals. A lake or possibly several smaller and shallower lakes occupied an area of about 50 km wide within the Azraq Basin. The present-day arid climate cannot support the presence of lakes in the eastern desert of Jordan, and thus MIS 9 in Jordan must have been much wetter. The source of humidity was most probably more intense Mediterranean cyclones associated with warmer than present MIS 9. However, the possibility of summer monsoon rain from the south cannot be fully excluded.     

A comparative assessment of catchment runoff generation and forest productivity in a semi-arid environment

Understanding the dynamic interactions between forest ecosystems and water in the Mediterranean region is essential for increasing ecosystem services. Even if many studies were implemented to analyse the variations of water and net primary productivity (NPP) in the last decade, this is still an important research question especially for the Eastern Mediterranean, where the research attempts are limited. The main objective of this study was to carry out a comparative analysis of catchment runoff generation and forest NPP and to reveal their temporal dynamics at basin scale in a semi-arid Mediterranean environment. The methodology consisted three steps: (i) estimating catchment runoff generation by implementing process-based J2000 modelling suite, (ii) modelling NPP of the land cover/use types by adapting an ecosystem-process model (BIOME-Biogeochemical cycles) and (iii) assessing the spatio-temporal variability of NPP and runoff dynamics by incorporating the modelling results with multiple regression analysis. Model simulations showed that temperature highly contributed to NPP variations of needle-leaf forests and grasslands. The multiple regression analysis also indicated that runoff was influenced by elevation, precipitation and forest cover. This relationship showed that the inter-annual variability in forest NPP would relate to the variations in runoff distribution across a small Mediterranean subcatchment.     

Basin-wide hydrological system assessment under climate change scenarios through conceptual modelling

ABSTRACT

Mediterranean region is identified as a primary hot-spot for climate change due to the expected temperature and rainfall changes. Understanding the potential impacts of climate change on the hydrology in these regions is an important task to develop long-term water management strategies. The aim of this study was to quantify the potential impacts of the climate changes on local hydrological quantities at the Goksu Watershed at the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey as a case study. A set of Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios were used as drivers for the conceptual hydrological model J2000 to investigate how the hydrological system and the underlying processes would respond to projected future climate conditions. The model was implemented to simulate daily hydrological quantities including runoff generation, Actual Evapotranspiration (AET) and soil-water balance for present (2005–2015) and future (up to 2100). The results indicated an increase of both precipitation and runoff throughout the region from January to March. The region showed a strong seasonally dependent runoff regime with higher flows during winter and spring and lower flows in summer and fall. The study provides a comparative methodology to include meteorological-hydrological modelling integration that can be feasible to assess the climate change impacts in mountainous regions.     

Modelling the current and future spatial distribution of NPP in a Mediterranean watershed

The aim of this study is to use full spatial resolution Envisat MERIS data to drive an ecosystem productivity model for pine forests along the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. The Carnegie, Ames, Stanford Approach (CASA) terrestrial biogeochemical model, designed to simulate the terrestrial carbon cycle using satellite sensor and meteorological data, was used to estimate annual regional fluxes in terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP). At its core this model is based on light-use efficiency, influenced by temperature, rainfall and solar radiation. Present climate data was generated from 50 climate stations within the watershed using co-kriging. Regional scale pseudo-warming data for year 2070 were derived using a Regional Climate Model (RCM) these data were used to downscale the GCM General Circulation Model for the research area as part of an international research project called Impact of Climate Changes on Agricultural Production Systems in Arid Areas (ICCAP). Outputs of climate data can be moderated using the four variables of percent tree cover, land cover, soil texture and NDVI. This study employed 47 MERIS images recorded between March 2003 and September 2005 to derive percent tree cover, land cover and NDVI. Envisat MERIS data hold great potential for estimating NPP with the CASA model because of the appropriateness of both its spatial and its spectral resolution.     

Late Cenozoic stress evolution along the Karasu Valley, SE Turkey

This study defines the Mio-Pliocene to present-day stress regime acting at the northeastern corner of the eastern Mediterranean region along the Karasu Valley (i.e., the Amanos Range), taking in the Antakya, Osmaniye and Kahramanmaras provinces. The inversion slip vectors measured on fault planes and chronologies between striations indicate that the stress regime varied from transpressional initially to transtensional, having consistent NW- and NE-trending σ_Hmax (σ₁) and σ_Hmin (σ₃) axes, respectively; there are significantly different mean stress-ratio (R_m) values however. The older mean stress state is characterized by N151±11°E-trending σ₁ and N59±12°E-trending σ₃ axes, and by a mean arithmetic R_m value of 0.76, indicating that the regional stress regime is transpressional. The younger stress regime is characterized by N154±8°E-trending σ₁ and N243±8°E-trending σ₃ axes, and by a mean arithmetic R_m value of 0.17, indicating a transtensional character for this regional stress regime. The low R values of the stress deviators related to the recent stress state reflect normal-component slips. The earthquake focal mechanism inversions confirm that the younger stress regime continues into the Recent. The inversion identifies a transtensional stress regime representing strike-slip and an extensional stress state with a consistent NE-trending σ_Hmin (σ₃) axis. These stress states are characterized by N66°E and N249°E-trending σ₃ axes, respectively. Both significant regional stress regimes induce left-lateral displacement along the southern part of the East Anatolian Fault (EAF, or Amanos Fault). The temporal change, probably in Quaternary time, within the regional stress regime—from transpression to transtension—resulted from the coeval influences of subduction processes in the west–southwest (i.e., along the Cyprus arc), continental collision in the east, and westward escape of the Anatolian block.     

Quantifying spatial patterns of bioclimatic zones and controls in Turkey

Summary The study was aimed at inferring spatial patterns of climatic zones as well as identifying significant discriminating bioclimatic controls for distribution of major ecosystems in Turkey, based on multivariate analyses. A total of 12 climate variables and 11 bioclimatic indices for the period of 1968–2004 at 272 meteorological stations, and four location data (latitudes, longitudes, altitudes, and distance to sea) were analyzed using discriminant analysis (DA), hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster analyses (CA), principal components analysis (PCA), and multiple linear regression (MLR) models. The first three and four linear discriminant functions (LDFs) explained 88 and 95% of the variation in the dataset, respectively. The efficacy of the discriminant model was high (85.5%) based on the cross-validation method. The hierarchical and non-hierarchical CA pointed to seven clusters (climate types) that can be observed on the basis of broad climatic similarity of 97%. PCA elucidated 78% of variation in the dataset. MLR models that accounted for variations in the 12 climatic response variables as a function of the four location variables and aspect had R ² values ranging from 28.8% for precipitation to 89.8% for mean air temperature and soil temperature for a depth of 5 cm. The multivariate analyses indicated that the meteorological stations are heterogeneous clusters consisting of the seven climatic zones. However, differences in the bioclimatic variables at the boundaries complicate the natural clustering scheme of a multidimensional cloud of data points and were detected in a climatologically plausible manner by the Ward and K-means CA, and PCA. Our multivariate approach revealed that the commonly used climatic zones are insufficient representations of the inferred climatic zones: (1) the coastal Black Sea; (2) the inland Black Sea; (3) the southeastern Anatolia; (4) the eastern Anatolia; (5) the central Anatolia; (6) the Mediterranean; and (7) the Aegean. Authors’ addresses: F. Evrendilek, Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Abant Izzet Baysal University, G?lk?y Cambus, 14280 Bolu, Turkey; S. Berberoglu, Department of Landscape Architecture, Cukurova University, Balcali-Adana, Turkey.     

A synthesis: Late Cenozoic stress field distribution at northeastern corner of the Eastern Mediterranean,SE Turkey

Fault kinematic analysis and inversion of focal mechanisms of shallow earthquakes reveal significant evolution of the regional stress regime in the northeastern most corner of the Eastern Mediterranean region since the Mio-Pliocene to the present time. This study was carried out in the interaction area between the Arabian/African plates and the Anatolian block. The evolution of stress regimes consists of a change from older transpression to younger transtension. Both strike-slip stress regimes having a NNW- to northwest-trending σ_Hmax (σ₁) and ENE- to northeast-trending σ_Hmin (σ₃) axes induce a sinistral component of displacement on the major intra-continental Karatas–Osmaniye and Misis–Ceyhan faults elongated with the northeast-trending Misis Range between Adana and Osmaniye provinces (sub-area i) and by a NNE-trending plate boundary Amanos fault running along Amanos Range between Antakya and Kahramanmaras provinces (sub-area ii). The inversion results show that the transtensional stress regime is dominantly strike-slip to extension, with an ENE- to northeast-trending σ_Hmin (σ₃) axis for sub-areas (i) and (ii), respectively. The inversions of earthquake focal mechanisms indicate that the transtensional stress regime is still active in the whole study area since probably recent Quaternary time. To cite this article: S. Over et al., C. R. Geoscience 336 (2004).     

Assessing different remote sensing techniques to detect land use/cover changes in the eastern Mediterranean

This paper describes different change detection techniques, including image differencing, image rationing, image regression and change vector analysis (CVA) to assess their effectiveness for detecting land use/cover change in a Mediterranean environment. Three Landsat TM scenes recorded on 7 July 1985, 27 July 1993 and 21 July 2005 were used to minimize change detection error introduced by seasonal differences. Images were geometrically, atmospherically and radiometrically corrected. The four change detection techniques were applied and an object-based supervised classification was used as a crossclassification to determine ‘from–to’ change which enabled assessment of the four techniques. The change vector analysis resulted in the largest overall accuracy of 75.25 and 75.55% for the 1985–1993 and 1993–2005 image pairs, respectively. The ratio yielded the least accurate results with an overall accuracy of 59.10 and 61.05% for the 1985–1993 and 1993–2005 image pairs, respectively. Different change detection algorithms have their own merits and advantages. However, the change vector analysis change detection technique was the most accurate model for handling the variability present in Mediterranean land use/cover.