Annals of Geophysics’ latest Special Issue 55-5 is focussed on Earthquake Geology: Active tectonics in the Mediterranean and Europe: site studies and application of new methodologies. This issue was edited by L. Cucci, P. M. De Martini, E. Masana, and K. Vanneste and contains seven papers. As always, all articles are open access. more

A nice meme is currently having success in the geoblogosphere. Originating in XKCD’s up-goer five explanation of a space rocket using only the 1000 most common English words, dozens of geobloggers already explained what they are doing in simple language. Anne over at Highly Allochthonous has collected the results, and she and Chris already set up a tumblr-page for collecting the texts. Try on your own using this text editor. So, here is my job description more

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are one of the most important tools in geosciences and can be helpful in almost every discipline. They are widely used not only in academia, but also in industry and administration. Obviously, it’s a good idea to know how to use these softwares. There are dozens, if not hundreds of different GIS versions available, but only few of them are freeware, like QGIS. Our colleague Riccardo Klinger from Digital Geography started a crowdsourcing initiative to get money for creating a free online video tutorial for everyone who wants to learn QGIS. If you like this idea, support him here at startnext.de. more

The RealClimate blog network published two long articles on the state of the art of sea level rise estimations. Part 1 was written by Stefan Rahmstorf on 9 Jan, part 2 was posted today. What will we need to prepare for until the end of the century?  more

The collapse of Bronze Age civilizations c.1200 BC remains a persistent riddle in Eastern Mediterranean archaeology. Earthquakes, attacks of the Sea Peoples, climatic deterioration, and socio-political unrest are among the most frequently suggested causes for this phenomenon. In the last issue of Seismological Research Letters (January/February 2013), Manuel Sintubin and myself attempt to retrace the origins of the idea according to which earthquakes may have caused the demise of Late Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean societies. The article features reproductions of unpublished archival documents held by the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (Nicosia). The free-access version of the paper can be found here. Happy reading!

The latest issue of the Seismological Review Letters (SRL) contains some interesting papers on strong earthquakes, seismicity, and tsunamis. Here’s a list of papers that could be especially interesting for the paleoseismicity community: more

I am not entirely sure why the following video was produced, what it is aiming for and if it should be used in geoscience education, but I like it. It very nicely illustrates what a green potato would experience if it was on a cruise ship, from there went down to the seafloor with a yellow submarine, was trapped by a submarine landslide and subducted into the Calabrian Arc and then by using a time machine spit out by Stromboli volcano or so. I always wanted to learn about this. more

Last year we’ve seen some surprising seismic events. Do you remember the two strange events of M8.6 and M8.2 off Sumatra? We didn’t even know that such strong strike-slip events were possible, and those two earthquakes ruptured in a weird rectangular pattern AND occured within few minutes of each other. Do you remember the third most powerful EQ that rattled the Okhotsk Sea? No? Well, I think it’s a good idea to have a look at the strongest events that happened last year.  more

I hope you had some nice and relaxed days over Christmas and you are joyfully awaiting the new year.

In the Christmas season my wife tried a new recipe for Lebkuchen biscuits. We have bought some small pluggable letter stamps and I decided that it would be a good idea to stamp some of the biscuits with special Christmas greetings, also for my colleagues from the NUG team. So my wife had baked the biscuits and I was responsible for the stamps.

If you want to bake these Lebkuchen biscuits in the next Christmas season, you can take the following recipe to try them.

For the upcoming year, I wish you all the best and good luck!

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Dear paleoseismicity.org friends and followers,

this was partly a stressful year for us, and luckily the Maya opened only the 13^th baktun and they proved to be much better mathematicians as the popular belief of a cataclysm made some of us believe. Christoph´s last post was on 21^st of December, and he and our authors will continue keeping this plant alive. All the best for Christmas and a Happy New 2013. See you here again.

Klaus

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