Turkey's varied landscapes are the product of a wide variety of tectonic processes that have shaped Anatolia over millions of years and continue today as evidenced by frequent earthquakes and occasional volcanic eruptions.
Turkey's terrain is structurally complex. Nearly 85% of the land is at an elevation of at least 450 meters and the median altitude of the country is 1,128 meters. More than 80% of the land surface is rough, broken, mountainous and therefore is of little agricultural value. The terrain's ruggedness is accentuated in the eastern part of the country where the two mountain ranges converge into a lofty region.
Turkey is geologically part of the great Alpine belt that extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Himilaya Mountains. Thsi belt was formed as the Arabian, African, and Indian continental plates began to collife with the Eurasian plate. This process is still at work today as the African Plate converges with the Eurasian Plate and the Anatolian Plate escapes towards the west and southwest along strike-slip faults. These are the North Anatolian Fault Zone, which forms the present day plate boundary of Eurasian near the Black Sea coast and, the East Anatolian Fault Zone, which forms part of the boundary of the North Arabian Plate in the southeast. As a result of this plate tectonics configuratio, Turkey is one of the world's more active earthquake and volcano regions.
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