August 7, 2008
AMEC Geomatrix Earthquake Expert Featured in Turkish Newspaper
Serkan Bozkurt, a Geographic Information System (GIS) specialist in 3D visualizations and modeling for earthquake research with AMEC Geomatrix, was highlighted in a Turkish newspaper as one of the experts who have made significant contributions to the science of earthquakes in an article about earthquakes in Turkey. The newspaper Vatan ran a four-day series focusing on scientific opinions about earthquakes, facts about earthquake risk, and possible mitigation methods.
A survivor of the magnitude 7.3 Kocaeli Earthquake in 1999, Serkan worked with many foreign scientists who traveled to Izmit, Turkey following the earthquake while working for his employer at the time, a United States GIS-GPS company with an office in Istanbul. He assisted the scientists with their research of the North Anatolian Fault (NAF) by providing dGPS services, GIS data, and GIS visualizations.
It is of particular interest that the article discussed how the NAF and San Andreas Fault (SAF) lines are very similar though they are half a world apart. Both have a similar style of faulting and length, but their history of earthquake occurrences greatly differs. Whereas the NAF has ruptured 12 times during the last 65 years, the SAF has had only two major earthquakes during the last century, in 1906 and 1989. Scientists are studying NAF to better understand and predict future activity at SAF and other similar faults.
Ross Stein, earthquake hazards geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), invited Serkan to the USGS as a visiting scientist after working with him in Turkey. Although he planned to stay for a year, Serkan worked for the USGS for several years supporting their ongoing earthquake research efforts around the world. In 2006 he joined AMEC Geomatrix as a GIS analyst where he has continued to contribute to seismic hazard analysis and research throughout the world. His GIS models and illustrations have appeared on the covers of the world’s leading scientific journals including Nature and Scientific American.
For more information, please contact:
Marion Thatch, FSMPS, CPSM
510.663.4128