Understanding of the diversity of earthquake turbiditic flows in a single lake: the case of the Lake Hazar on the East Anatolian Fault

The East Anatolian Fault (EAF) is a major left-lateral strike-slip fault accommodating with the conjugate North Anatolian Fault the westward extrusion of the Anatolian Plate away from the Arabia-Eurasia collision zone. The East Anatolian Fault ruptured over most of its length during the 19th century in a series of magnitude ~7 earthquakes. During the 20th century this fault was less active with only two events of magnitude greater than 6. This absence of large earthquakes has resulted in relatively little attention being paid to the East Anatolian Fault compared to the North Anatolian Fault, which has ruptured during the last century in several earthquakes of Ms~7. To constrain the seismic history of the East Anatolian Fault in its central part, we focus on the Hazar Lake, occupying a 20 km long pull-apart basin. Short cores and long sedimentary cores were collected at three different sites to retrieve a paleoseismic record. Small correlative coarse-grained sedimentary events are identified in all cores. The age of the events is inferred combining radiocarbon and radionuclide (137 Cs and 210Pb) dating. We present here detailed analyses of three sedimentary events assigned respectively to the historical earthquakes occurring in 1789, 1513-1514, 1285. The source of the sedimentary events is different at the three sites. We combine X-ray imagery, magnetic susceptibility, grain-size and XRF measurements with thin section analysis to investigate the nature of sedimentary events. The analyses show first that the three sedimentary events are different. The magnitude of the terrigenous signal varies significantly. Second the correlative events have a different expression at the three sites. So each site has a different and specific sensitivity. In particular, an individual event can be composed of several coarse-grained sub-events of different magnitude with a time lapse in between greater than a week. The latter is reveals by the presence of bioturbation in particular by chironomids in individual thin sand layers. Thin section also shows that subevents are gradded. Each coarse-grained layer is thus a separated turbiditic flow. The site with the highest sensitivity is the one located near the near-shore steep submarine southern slopes overhanged by the steep subaerial slopes of the Hazar Mountains. The rivers draining the Hazar Mountains are ephemeral and provide a restricted sedimentary supply. In addition, seismic reflection data show that the submarine slopes do not to accumulate a significant sedimentary load. However on these steep slopes, an earthquake intensity of 6 or less is enough to trigger a slope failure and the associated turbiditic flow. We conclude that the different sub-events at this site may record a complete earthquake sequence, i.e the main-shock and its foreshocks and aftershocks.