Its a dangerous world especially for societies around the pond.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolian_Plate

"But studies of the North Anatolian Fault indicate that Anatolia is de-coupled from the Eurasian Plate...The African Plate is subducting beneath the Anatolian Plate along the Cyprus and Hellenic Arcs offshore in the Mediterranean Sea."

Is Anatolia de-coupled because it is being pushed by the Arabian Plate or is it that it was originally a part of the African Continent that has since drifted East after a catastrophic blow from Nature? See the map of the Holy Roman Empire; if it were a jigsaw puzzle Turkey would fit right next to Tunisia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RomanEmpire_117.svg

In the same breath they speak of the North Anatolian Fault being a transform fault; and here is the definition of a transform fault: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“A transform fault or transform boundary, also known as conservative plate boundary, is a type of fault at the margin of a tectonic plate whose relative motion is horizontal in either sinistral or dextral direction. Typically, some vertical motion may also exist, but the principal vectors in a transform fault are oriented horizontally.”

Plain English: The so-called Anatolian Fault is the boundary that separates Europe from Turkey. Both Turkey and Tunisia appear to be bookends to a continuous landmass that was probably sunk when the Atlantic flooded the Mediterranean. See link for the Geology of Africa:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa

"Geologically, Africa includes the Arabian Peninsula; the Zagros Mountains of Iran and the Anatolian Plateau of Turkey mark where the African Plate collided with Eurasia. The Afrotropic ecozone and the Saharo-Arabian desert to its north unite the region biogeographically, and the Afro-Asiatic language family unites the north linguistically."