COLUMBIA, S.C. — There have been over 100 earthquakes in the past 7 days in Turkey and Syria with two being above a magnitude 7. The strongest, a magnitude 7.8 is almost 2 million times stronger than the 3.6 earthquake we saw on June 29th of last year in the Midlands.
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Looking at the region the Anatolian Plate is moving against the Arabian Plate. The East Anatolian Fault where the earthquakes have been occurring is known as a strike-slip fault, similar to the famous San Andreas fault in California. In this situation the two plates rub up against each other until the immense energy is released in a powerful earthquake.
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Here in the Midlands we have been dealing with our own earthquakes, 85 of them since late 2021 with the latest occurring on January 20th of this year.
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Unlike the strike-slip fault in turkey our fault system is very old and not a boundary between plate. While there is some stress being released during these quakes, the potential for a very large earthquake in this type of setup is much lower.