The Anatolian plate is a continental tectonic plate lying under Asiatic part of

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

, known as

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

. Most of the country of Turkey is located on the Anatolian plate. The plate is separated from the Eurasian plate and the Arabian plate by the North Anatolian Fault and the East Anatolian Fault respectively. According to the American Museum of Natural History, the Anatolian transform fault system is "probably the most active in the world". Most significant earthquakes in the region have historically occurred along the northern fault, such as the 1939 Erzincan earthquake. The northern edge is a transform boundary with the Eurasian plate, forming the North Anatolian Fault zone (NAFZ). The East Anatolian Fault, a left lateral transform fault, forms a boundary with the Arabian plate. The devastating 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes occurred along the active East Anatolian Fault at a strike-slip fault where the Arabian plate is sliding past the Anatolian plate horizontally. To the south and southwest is a convergent boundary with the African plate. This convergence manifests in compressive features within the oceanic crust beneath the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

as well as within the

continental crust Continental crust is the layer of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks that forms the geological continents and the areas of shallow seabed close to their shores, known as '' continental shelves''. This layer is sometimes called '' si ...

of Anatolia itself, and also by what are generally considered to be subduction zones along the Hellenic and Cyprus arcs. In some references, the Anatolian plate is referred to as a "block" or "sub-plate" of continental crust still coupled to the Eurasian plate, but studies of the North Anatolian Fault indicate that Anatolia is de-coupled from the Eurasian plate. Studies collecting and interpreting GPS data from this region show that the Arabian plate and Anatolian sub-plate are both being rotated counterclockwise. Additionally, the Anatolian plate's velocity increases towards the Hellenic and Cyprus trenches along the African-Eurasian subduction zone, moving at higher speeds than the Arabian plate. These observations, along with the absence of crustal shortening in the Anatolian plate normal to Arabian plate movement, indicate that suction from the African plate subducting and rolling back beneath the Anatolian plate is primarily responsible for the west/southwest movement of the Anatolian plate and the counterclockwise rotation of the region. Previously, the crust under the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...

was described as a part of the Anatolian plate, and the different directions of motion were explained as the plate rotating counterclockwise (see above). Further measurements found that motion of the Aegean region differed from the previous model, so the Anatolian and Aegean Sea plate are now considered distinct from each other.

References

External links

* Tectonic plates Geology of Turkey {{Turkey-geo-stub