Aykut Barka
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Aykut Barka, born on January 7, 1952 in the district of Fatih in Istanbul, Turkey was a Turkish Earth scientist. He is best known for his contributions to understanding the behaviour of the North Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ), one of the most dangerous active faults in the world.
He received his PhD degree in 1981 from the University of Bristol, UK under the supervision of Dr. P.L. Hancock with a thesis on "Seismotectonic Aspects of the North Anatolian Fault Zone".
He worked and studied geosciences in some top rated institutions around the world, including Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, École Normale Supérieure Paris, MIT Earth Resources Laboratory, Cambridge, MA, University of Bristol, UK and Geological Survey of Japan.
In 1997, Barka published a paper with Ross Stein and James H. Dieterich of USGS, titled "Progressive failure on the North Anatolian fault since 1939 by earthquake stress triggering", which showed the migration of big earthquakes and, not surprisingly, positive stress accumulation in the Marmara Region. Only 2 years after this paper was published, a Magnitude 7.4 earthquake hit the Izmit area in Marmara, killing more than 20,000 people.
Aykut Barka died on February 1, 2002 from injuries suffered in a car accident five weeks earlier. He leaves a wife and two young children.
