What is happening in this corner of the eastern Mediterranean? That the confluence of four occurs tectonic plates, those of Anatolia, Arabian, Eurasian and African; those moving pieces of the puzzle that makes up the Earth's lithosphere. The anvil-shaped Anatolian Plate is pressed to the east by the Arabian Plate, to the north by the Eurasian Plate, and to the south by the African Plate. The slow and gradual movement of the tectonic plates causes the accumulation of significant stresses on their edges that progressively deform the rocks of the crust until they fracture. They are the failures, those sutures of weakness, which can instantly release large amounts of accumulated elastic energy, causing an earthquake.
