GNGTS 2018 - 37° Convegno Nazionale

228 GNGTS 2018 S essione 1.2 the eastern Mediterranean. Several Authors have pointed out (e.g. Le Pichon and Angelier, 1979) that western Anatolia now belongs to the same strain pattern as the Aegean Sea and is dominated by N-S to NE-SW extension. According to Rotstein (1984) this motion cannot be modeled as a rotation about a single Eulerian pole. This idea is supported by the lack of decrease of the westward velocity in the profiles B C and D, as one moves northwards. Profiles B0 - B1, C0 - C1, D0 - D1: sample the stretching across Ukraine, Moldova and Rumania associated to the dragging of the lithosphere by the counterrotation of the Anatolian plate. For a rotation of the Anatolian block about a single Eulerian pole one would expect a decrease of the velocity as one moves north, roughly the ratio of the sine of the mean latitude of Fig. 3 - The eight profiles A to H with velocity projected along the profile, and the ninth profile (bottom) with velocity projected across the profile, are shown with the corresponding GTOPO30 topographic profile with a 25 km window running average, to highlight the correlation between topography and present day deformation. The bottom profile runs south to north, so that the negative velocities are eastwards and the positive velocities westwards.