Natural oil seep systems in the Aegean Sea

The analysis of satellite-based Synthetic Aperture Radar Sentinel-1 data reveals the presence of an oil seepage system composed of 33 recurrent oil seeps sites in the Aegean Sea. The temporal analysis of this system shows that most oil seeps are detected during the summer period, probably due to better detection conditions during this period. The estimations of expulsion frequency computed using the summer period show that the frequency is highly variable from one seep to another with occurrence rates that reach 40% for the most active sites. Oil seeps gather among two main provinces. First, in the Limnos and Saros pull-apart basins where oil seeps are aligned along the North Anatolian Fault (NAF), which suggest that oil seep locations are mostly driven by the fault network. In the Limnos basin, detected oil seeps also coincide with the location of a gravity-driven sedimentary destabilisation complex that developed under the influence of the Limnos pull-apart basin subsidence and the transtensive strain of the NAF. Finally, oil seeps detected in the proximity of the Skyros-Edremit region seems to follow a different control considering that oil seeps appear disconnected from the main fault in the area (Skyros-Edremit).