ARKHANGELSK, February 9. /TASS/. Russia's northernmost seismic stations fixed the earthquake in Turkey, and scientists will use the data in the Arctic studies, a seismologist at the Arctic complex studies center (the Russian Academy of Sciences' Urals Branch), Galina Antonovskaya, told TASS. The Arkhangelsk observation network's some stations are located on the Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya archipelagos.

"The Arkhangelsk network's stations have recorded this event, and we continue to record aftershocks. <...> The earthquake has been recorded both on Novaya Zemlya, on Franz Josef Land, and on Severnaya Zemlya. <...> This earthquake has been recorded <...> and, of course, (the data) will be taken into account to clarify the lithosphere's deep structures in the Russian Arctic's western sector," she said.

It was for the first time that data on a major earthquake in the European part of the continent has been recorded at Arctic seismic stations. The equipment on Franz Josef Land was installed for the first time in 2011, on Severnaya Zemlya - in 2017, on the Dixon - in 2020, and a stationary seismic station began operating on Novaya Zemlya in 2022. Earlier, there were no seismic stations in those locations.

Scientists will use the received data to make geological and seismic models, the expert added.

Observation network

After the earthquake in Turkey, Professor Carlo Doglioni, Head of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, said the Arabian Plate had moved about three meters to the northeast and southwest relative to the Anatolian Plate. According to the scientist, "it's as if Turkey has moved to the southwest." These data have been obtained from a very dense network of seismic monitoring, which includes various and very sensitive equipment, including a system for space monitoring of lithospheric plates and a ground-based GPS system to monitor lithospheric plates, the Russian expert said.

Most probably, the data on how much the plate has moved will be clarified, perhaps even to centimeters. "Perhaps, in further research, scientists will create models, will take into account all the seismic GPS monitoring data, will read data off accelerometers - the sensors that measure acceleration. They will summarize all the information, and the accuracy is likely to be even higher," she added.

Such accurate data may be obtained only if there are very many monitoring stations of the kind. The seismic monitoring network in Russia is poorly developed, even in potentially dangerous regions, she continued. "Unfortunately, our network is very poorly developed. Even if we take the Kamchatka, which is a seismically active area, with many volcanoes, where many tourists take trips to those volcanoes, the monitoring systems are poorly developed, and the network density is not sufficient. And even a weak event, for example, related to a volcanic eruption, can lead to deaths. This country has a clear shortage of seismic stations," the seismologist said.

A powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake rocked Turkey’s Kahramanmaras province, located in the country’s southeast, on February 6. The tremors, followed by hundreds of aftershocks, were felt in ten provinces as well as in neighboring countries, including Syria.