Abstract This paper illustrates the results of a multidisciplinary study on the active tectonics of Hierapolis and Colossae in Aegean Turkey. Tectonic analysis is combined with a study of historical seismicity, highlighting the use of historical sources from oral tradition (legends and myths) to derive important geological information for which the legendary account is the only witness. Strong correlation between tectonic and historical/mythological data suggests that the legendary narration is based on real geological events. This allows a better understanding of the local active tectonics and seismic history. At Hierapolis, it is possible to recognize evidence of surface faulting from the AD 60 earthquake. At Colossae, we can reconstruct the local geomorphic evolution, and show its relationship to the AD 60 earthquake.

The Büyük Menderes graben is one of the most important active tectonic structures of western Anatolia. The graben extends for a distance of ~150 km between the Denizli Basin in the east and the Aegean Sea in the west, where its trend changes to NE-SW. The main active faults are located along the northern margin of the graben, some of which have been reactivated in surface-rupturing earthquakes during the twentieth century and the historical period. Detailed investigations along the NE-SW–trending part of the Büyük Menderes graben showed that archaeological relics have been faulted by surface ruptures during the large historical earthquakes. The ancient city of Priene and an Ottoman bridge are located along the northwestern margin of the graben to the southwest of Söke and in Sazliköy, respectively. Field observations and light detection and ranging (LIDAR) studies at both sites show that faulting has a normal component with considerable right-lateral movement. Offset archaeological features at both Priene and the Ottoman bridge are evidence for the reactivation of the graben boundary faults in the past 2000 yr. At Priene, a N-S–trending street wall is offset by 21 cm vertically and 10 cm dextrally, the eastern wall of the gymnasium is offset by 8 cm vertically, and the floor blocks of the agora are displaced by 26 cm vertically and 13 cm dextrally. The Ottoman bridge displays 76 cm vertical and 43 cm dextral offset to the southeast, which probably occurred during the 1846 earthquake.

Abstract The presence of travertines adjacent to the city and their value for construction was well known to the Greek, Roman and Byzantine residents of Hierapolis (modern Pamukkale). The travertines were mainly extracted from quarries on the outer slopes of a low plateau below the city. The distinctive attribute of most of the quarries is that they are narrow but deep vertical-sided trenches. Each trench is the site of a nearly vertical fissure that was filled by banded fissure travertine, one type of so-called Phrygian marble. Trench walls, formerly the contacts between vertical banded travertines and outward dipping bedded travertines, bear a well-defined herringbone pattern of tool marks identical to those on many of the stone blocks that were used for building Hierapolis. Deposition of the travertines in 21 major fissure–ridges was a consequence of precipitation following degassing of carbonate-rich hot waters emerging from springs aligned along active faults and associated fissures. Whereas the dense and attractively banded travertine in fissures was principally used as an ornamental stone, the bedded travertines of ridge sides were mainly employed as a dimension stone and for making columns. After many of the monuments at Hierapolis had been constructed from travertine, itself a faulting-related material, some of them were subsequently destroyed or damaged by earthquake fault reactivation, which caused them to be either shaken or displaced. The zone of greatest seismic damage coincides with the trace of the Hierapolis fault zone, whose location was detected from an alignment of offsets of walls and petrified irrigation channels. The kinematic class of this fault zone could be deduced because offsets of the linear archaeological features permitted opening directions to be determined, thus allowing the fault zone to be reinterpreted as a normal fault zone achieving a small downthrow to the southwest. The knowledge that the Hierapolis fault zone is a structure across which there is active stretching and increased hydrothermal flow helps to explain why the present-day area of hot pools and travertine deposition is situated immediately downslope of the fault trace. If this relationship between displaced features and recent travertine deposits occurs elsewhere it might be employed for finding the locations of earthquake faults.