Abstract
The broader area of Athens, a region exhibiting relatively low crustal deformation, was stroke in 1999 by a catastrophic earthquake posing serious questions regarding strain accumulation in slow deforming regions located within active geodynamic regimes. In the present study, the establishment of a dense geodetic network, primarily designed to monitor local tectonic movements is reported. A comprehensive GNSS velocity field, over the period 2005–2008, as well as calculated geodetic strain rates is presented. It is shown that a single strain tensor is insufficient to express the heterogeneity of the local geodetic field. Local variability of strain is successfully depicted, indicating the western part of Athens as the area of higher strain accumulation. Maximum dilatation rates occur along a NNE-SSW direction between Parnitha Mt. and Thriasio basin. The observed dilatation can be associated to WNW-ESE trending active fault zones, which appear to abruptly terminate towards East along a major NNE-SSW Miocene tectonic boundary. These findings are consistent to the stress field responsible for the Athens 1999 earthquake, also in agreement with geological and tectonic observations. Finally, the implications of the observed motion field on the understanding of the kinematics and dynamics of the region as well as the role of inherited inactive tectonic structures are discussed.
Funding statement: The present study was financed by the European Union (75 %), the General Secretariat for Research & Technology of the Ministry of Development of the Hellenic Republic (25 %), and the Private Sector TerraMentor EOOS, within the framework of action 8.3 of the EU “Competitiveness” – 3rd Community Support Programme.
Acknowledgment
The author would like to acknowledge Prof. E. Lagios for supervision of the work, Prof. D. Paradissis (NTUA) and Prof. D. Papanikolaou (NKUA) for discussions and suggestions, Dr. A. Marinou for advices on data processing, Dr. V. Sakkas for processing of UOA1 data and Metrica S. A. for MET0 station data provision. Special thanks to Prof. I. Fountoulis for discussions on the tectonics of the area and his contribution on the design of the network. Comments by Prof. I. Papanikolaou that helped improve the manuscript are greatly appreciated. Current work would not have been realized without the invaluable support during field campaigns of Bouazza I., Chatoupis F., Chousianitis C., Filis C., Gouliotis L., Kaplanidis, G., Karalemas, N., Papageorgiou E., Routis A. and Sakkas V. (listed alphabetically).
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Supplemental Material
The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/jag-2019-0012).
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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- Velocity field and crustal deformation of broader Athens plain (Greece) from a dense geodetic network
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Review Article
- Experimental results of multipath behavior for GPS L1-L2 and Galileo E1-E5b in static and kinematic scenarios
- Research Articles
- Recovering Moho constituents from satellite altimetry and gravimetric data for Europe and surroundings
- Velocity field and crustal deformation of broader Athens plain (Greece) from a dense geodetic network
- Fast converging elitist genetic algorithm for knot adjustment in B-spline curve approximation
- An approximation of geodesic circle passing through three points on an ellipsoid
- Evaluation of alternative conformal mapping for geospatial data in Jordan