The 6 February 2023 Türkiye Earthquake Sequence as Detected in the Ionosphere

Abstract

AbstractOn 6 February 2023, a series of large earthquakes struck Turkey and Northern Syria. The main earthquake of Mw 7.8 occurred at 01:17:34 UTC and was followed by the three notable (Mw > 5.5) aftershocks within the next 18 min. Then, ∼9 hr later, the biggest aftershock with magnitude Mw 7.5 and a Mw 6.0 earthquake occurred to the north‐east from the first main earthquake. In this work, we use data of ground‐based Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) receivers in Turkey, Israel and Cyprus to analyze the ionospheric response to this series of earthquakes. We separate these events in two groups: the first sequence of earthquakes (at 01–02 UTC) and the second sequence (at 10–11 UTC). For the first sequence, we observe a clear N‐shaped total electron content (TEC) response after the Mw 7.8 mainshock earthquake and Mw 6.7 aftershock, and a smaller TEC disturbance that is, most likely, caused by the Mw 5.6 earthquake. The latter is now the smallest earthquake detected by using ionospheric GNSS data. The co‐seismic ionospheric disturbances (CSID) propagated from the epicentral area in the south‐west direction with velocities of about 750–830 m/s. For the second sequence, we observed the response to the Mw 7.5 aftershock earthquake and the Mw 6.0 aftershock. The CSID propagated both to the south‐west and the north‐west to the epicentral area, with velocities of about 950–1,100 m/s.