- journal_title：Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
- Contributor：Ruth A. Harris ; James F. Dolan ; Ross Hartleb ; Steven M. Day
- Publisher：Seismological Society of America
- Date：2002-
- Format：text/html
- Language：en
- Identifier：10.1785/0120000825
- journal_abbrev：Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
- issn：0037-1106
- volume：92
- issue：1
- firstpage：245
- section：Articles
Before the August 1999 İzmit (Kocaeli), Turkey, earthquake, theoretical studies of earthquake ruptures and geological observations had provided estimates of how far an earthquake might jump to get to a neighboring fault. Both numerical simulations and geological observations suggested that 5 km might be the upper limit if there were no transfer faults. The İzmit earthquake appears to have followed these expectations. It did not jump across any step-over wider than 5 km and was instead stopped by a narrower step-over at its eastern end and possibly by a stress shadow caused by a historic large earthquake at its western end. Our 3D spontaneous rupture simulations of the 1999 İzmit earthquake provide two new insights: (1) the west- to east-striking fault segments of this part of the North Anatolian fault are oriented so as to be low-stress faults and (2) the easternmost segment involved in the August 1999 rupture may be dipping. An interesting feature of the İzmit earthquake is that a 5-km-long gap in surface rupture and an adjacent 25° restraining bend in the fault zone did not stop the earthquake. The latter observation is a warning that significant fault bends in strike-slip faults may not arrest future earthquakes.