Earthquake triggering in the north and east Aegean plate boundaries due tothe Anatolia westward motion

Historical and instrumental data of the last five centuries show that major earthquakes in the Marmara Sea area are followed by high strong-earthquake seismicity in the Aegean area. During the first phase of this excitation p eriod, which lasts about 3 years, strong shallow earthquakes concentrate al most exclusively along the Northern Boundary of the Aegean plate. Within 1- 5 years after the first strong earthquake along this boundary, strong-earth quake seismicity also increases in the Eastern Aegean Boundary. On the basi s of current ideas on active tectonics and the previous observations, we ex pect the generation of several mainshocks with a mean magnitude of M=6.5 al ong the Northern Aegean Boundary during the next 3 years, following the rec ent large Izmit (NW Turkey) earthquake (1999.8.17, M=7.4).