East Anatolian Fault East Anatolian Fault The East Anatolian Fault is a major strike-slip fault zone in eastern Turkey. It forms the transform type tectonic boundary between the Anatolian Plate and the northward-moving Arabian Plate. The difference in the relative motions of the two plates is manifest in the left lateral motion along the fault. The East and North Anatolian faults together accommodate the westward motion of the Anatolian Plate as it is squeezed out by the ongoing collision with the Eurasian Plate. The East Anatolian Fault runs in a northeasterly direction, starting from the Maras Triple Junction at the northern end of
Anatolian diagonal and land bridges intermittently formed across the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara. After the end of the most recent ice age, plants surviving to the west of the Anatolian diagonal could spread back into Europe while those to the east could spread into Syria, Iraq and the Near East. The Taurus Mountains provide a cool damp climate for species that cannot survive the hot dry summer climate on either side, and this could have encouraged survival and speciation, resulting in the many endemic species found here today. Anatolian diagonal The Anatolian diagonal is a theoretical dividing line which runs