Knowledge on large earthquakes (M 7.0), geology and fault kinematics is used to analyse conditions that favour isolated seismicity, clustered earthquakes or propagating sequencesalong the North Anatolian Fault (NAF) and the Sea of Marmara pull-apart.

Ten M>=6.7 earthquakes ruptured 1,000 km of the North Anatolian fault (Turkey) during 1939-92, providing an unsurpassed opportunity to study how one large shock sets up the next. Weuse the mapped surface slip and fault geometry to infer the transfer of stress ...