The East Anatolian Fault is a major strike-slip fault zone in eastern Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

. It forms the transform

Transform fault

A transform fault or transform boundary, also known as conservative plate boundary since these faults neither create nor destroy lithosphere, is a type of fault whose relative motion is predominantly horizontal in either sinistral or dextral direction. Furthermore, transform faults end abruptly...

 type tectonic boundary between the Anatolian Plate

Anatolian Plate

The Anatolian Plate is a continental tectonic plate consisting primarily of the country of Turkey.The easterly side is a boundary with the Arabian Plate, the East Anatolian Fault, a left lateral transform fault....

 and the northward-moving Arabian Plate

Arabian Plate

The Arabian Plate is one of three tectonic plates which have been moving northward over millions of years and colliding with the Eurasian Plate...

. The difference in the relative motions of the two plates is manifest in the left lateral motion along the fault. The East and North Anatolian faults together accommodate the westward motion of the Anatolian Plate as it is squeezed out by the ongoing collision with the Eurasian Plate

Eurasian Plate

The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate which includes most of the continent of Eurasia , with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent, and the area east of the Chersky Range in East Siberia...

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The East Anatolian Fault runs in a northeasterly direction, starting from the Maras Triple Junction at the northern end of the Dead Sea Transform

Dead Sea Transform

The Dead Sea Transform fault system, also sometimes referred to as the Dead Sea Rift, is a geologic fault which runs from the Maras Triple Junction to the northern end of the Red Sea Rift...

, and ending at the Karliova Triple Junction

Karliova Triple Junction

The Karlıova Triple Junction is a geologic triple junction of three tectonic plates: the Anatolian Plate, the Eurasian Plate and the Arabian Plate....

 where it meets the North Anatolian Fault

North Anatolian Fault

The North Anatolian Fault is a major active right lateral-moving strike-slip fault in northern Anatolia which runs along the transform boundary between the Eurasian Plate and the Anatolian Plate. The fault extends westward from a junction with the East Anatolian Fault at the Karliova Triple...

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From 1939 to 1999 a series of earthquakes progressed westwards along the North Anatolian Fault. But since 2003 there have been a series on the East Anatolian Fault. These started with the 2003 Bingöl earthquake

2003 Bingöl earthquake

The 2003 Bingöl earthquake was a magnitude 6.4 earthquake that hit eastern Turkey on May 1, 2003 at 03:27 local time . The epicenter was in Bingöl Province, 15 km north of Bingöl...

 and include the 2010 Elâzığ earthquake

2010 Elâzığ earthquake

The 2010 Elâzığ earthquake was a 6.1 Mw earthquake that occurred on 8 March 2010 at 02:32 UTC . The epicentre of the quake was Başyurt in Elâzığ province, in eastern Turkey. Initial reports in global media said as many as 57 people had died. Reports in the Turkish media two days after the quake...

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