**2. Seismicity in the Adana region**

Adana is located in the southeastern part of Anatolia, close to the border of the Mediterranean Sea, which was one of the historical cities of Turkey. So many civilizations were placed in this city. In a chronologic order, Adana was a settlement of the Hittite Kingdom (B.C. 1900–1200), Assyria Kingdom (B.C. 713–663), Persian Satrapy (B.C. 612–333), Seleukos Empire (B.C. 312–133), and Roman Empire (B.C. 112–A.C. 395), before being a part of Ramazonoğlu seigniority (sixteenth century) and following Turkish civilizations.

Tepebağ was the oldest historical settlement in Adana. According to the bibliographic sources, this area is the first placement of the Hittite Kingdom. The new neighborhoods such as Kayalıbağ, Ulucami, Sarıyakup, and similar regions were developed when the city was expanded from the Tepebağ through the south. The traditional houses in Adana were built in the seventeenth century in those settlements. With the city's trade progression, people's wealth increased; therefore, the typology of the traditional houses changed and got bigger. Those big houses were designed as two or three-story, called "konak" [1]. Mostly those houses belonging to the tradespeople were more prominent than the city's other houses.

The traditional houses of Adana are authentic and essential heritage in this region. However, from the past to the present, they were at risk of damage from environmental aspects. One of those aspects was seismicity. Therefore, identifying the seismic risk of this region, the tectonic faults, and their location with the historical seismicity of the area was examined. As seen in the below figure, the land had a complex tectonic regime. The location of the Adana was between the Göksu and Ecemiş faults. Besides those faults, the Eastern Anatolian fault and its extension faults are passing on this land. The African, Anatolian, and Arabian plates intersect in this area. The Eastern Anatolian fault is the most effective and causes many seismic events (**Figure 1**).

Historical seismic activities in Adana city and its surroundings are shown below in **Figures 2** and **3**. In **Figure 2**, the marked locations on the map were signed according to the estimated and calculated historical seismic location and time. It brought an idea about the historical seismicity of this area. In **Figure 3**, all the marked areas were the locations of seismic activity after 1951.

One of the most significant historical seismic activities in this area happened in 1114 near Ceyhan Adana, with a magnitude of 7. In the recent past, the most important seismic activities happened in Adana city in 1945, 1952, and 1998 with a magnitude of 6.1, 5.2, and 6.3, respectively [3].

The magnitude of the Adana earthquake in 1998 was 6.3, which caused various damages to more than 4000 buildings [4]. Although the historical structures essentially in the Tepebağ region and its surroundings were affected by this earthquake, most of them collapsed. Today, few numbers of registered buildings remained in this region. Most of those structures were in bad condition [5].

*Morphology of the Vernacular Masonry Structure in Adana City and Its Qualitative Analysis… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108692*

#### **Figure 1.**

*Faults on the Klikya area; AB: Adana Basin, AN: Andırın, DAF: Eastern Anatolian fault, E.F.: Ecemiş fault, GFZ: Göksu fault, G.S.: Girne ridge fault, H.F.: Hatay fault, İB: İskenderun basin, K.B.: Klikya basin, K.F.: Karasu fault, L.B.: Latakia basin, MS: Misis ridge, ÖDF: Ölü Deniz fault, Y.F.: Yumurtalık fault [2].*

**Figure 2.**

*The historical seismic activity of the Klikya region with marked location and time [2].*

In site analysis, it was observed that the structural systems of the historical houses in Adana-Tepebağ region were damaged. Those damages could be occurred from the seismic activities or other environmental effects.

The morphology of Vernacular masonry wall structures in the Adana-Tepebağ traditional houses clarifies the key concepts of masonry construction techniques against seismicity.

**Figure 3.** *"Beach balls" represent the focal mechanism in the region, mainly strike-slip and normal faulting [2].*
