Slip rates of the Aigion and Eliki Faults from uplifted marine terraces, Corinth Gulf, Greece

Abstract

Along the southern coast of the Gulf of Corinth, important coastal uplift is illustrated by raised Late-Pleistocene marine platforms. Terrace remnants preserved on the footwall of the Aigion and Eliki Faults were mapped in detail. To derive cumulative uplift rates, the individual terraces were tentatively correlated with the eustatic sea-level curve, constrained by some direct dating of the deposits blanketing the terraces. We obtain uplift rates of 1.05–1.2 mmyr−1 for the Aigion Fault footwall and of 1.0 and 1.25 mmyr−1 for the East and West Eliki Fault footwalls respectively. A forward modelling procedure was adopted to fit the best-preserved terrace transects, using a code based on standard dislocation theory and assuming reasonable scenarios of regional uplift. We obtained maximum slip rates consistently in the range of 7–11 mmyr−1 for the West and East Eliki Faults and of 9–11 mmyr−1 for the Aigion Fault.