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Earthquakes induced/triggered by fracking, oil extraction, waste water disposal?

Two articles dealing with induced (or triggered?) seismicity caught my attention last week. Time came up with a report about “The Seismic Link Between Fracking and Earthquakes“. New studies on that topic had been presented at the SSA annual meeting in Alaska. Basically it’s now possible to link two phenomena: a) The huge increase in shale gas and oil development in Ohio, Oklahoma, and Kansas during the last few years; and b) the huge increase in earthquake activity in Ohio, Oklahoma, and Kansas during the last few years. Continue reading “Earthquakes induced/triggered by fracking, oil extraction, waste water disposal?”

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New papers on lacustrine turbidites, coseismic landslides in NZ, active faults in Iran, and paleoseismology in Ecuador

Old books

I came across several interesting papers on paleoseismology and related disciplines, most of them published recently. They deal with “classical” paleoseismology, with earthquake environmental effects like coseismic landslides and tsunamis, and also with geomorphological indicators for active faulting. Let me know if I missed some! Continue reading “New papers on lacustrine turbidites, coseismic landslides in NZ, active faults in Iran, and paleoseismology in Ecuador”

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Earthquake-induced landslides in the Appennines – distance versus magnitude and ESI epicentral intensity

A new paper by Esposito et al. has been published in Springer’s Landslide Science and Practice that will help to better constrain intensities on the ESI scale. Landslides induced by twelve moderate to strong earthquakes events during the last 300 yrs have been analyzed. The authors calculated distance vs. magnitude and distance vs. ESI epicentral intensity relationships, similar to the famous correlations by Keefer (1984). Continue reading “Earthquake-induced landslides in the Appennines – distance versus magnitude and ESI epicentral intensity”

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New earthquake and paleoseismology papers in SRL, J Struc Geol

The latest issue of the Seismological Research Letters (SRL) has at least three papers dealing with topics interesting for paleoseismologists.

Hinzen et al. studied the rotation of objects (e.g., monuments) during the L’Aquila earthquake of 2009. They scanned the rotated objects with a high-res laser scanner, built discrete-element-models from the data and simulated the shaking necessary to cause the deformation. The results help to better estimate earthquake parameters from earthquake archaeological effects (EAEs).

Continue reading “New earthquake and paleoseismology papers in SRL, J Struc Geol”

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New papers on earthquakes, paleoseismology and a “lost fault”

The latest issue of the Seismological Research Letters (SRL) does not only have a very stylish cover, but also includes some papers that will be of interest for the fans of old earthquakes and environmental earthquake effects (EEEs). In the Historical Seismologist section, Bilham et al describe the hunt for a lost fault – that is, one that was described by Oldham in the 19th Century, but never really located and almost forgotten. Nice! Continue reading “New papers on earthquakes, paleoseismology and a “lost fault””

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What’s up? The Friday links (56)

It’s been a while since the last Friday links, so today’s list is rather long. Of course the Russian meteoroid-meteor-meteorite (yes, in this order!) was an absolutely amazing, though destructive phenomenon. The air blast was registered equivalent to an earthquake of magnitude 2.7. Read Livescience’s article here and read this text to get to know about meteors and seismograms in general. Continue reading “What’s up? The Friday links (56)”

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Call for abstracts on earthquake effects for 2 sessions at IAEG XII Congress (Torino), 2014

Dear colleagues,

please consider submitting abstracts to the following session to be held at the IAEG XII Congress in Torino, 15-19 September 2014:

  • Off-fault coseismic surface effects and their impact in urban areas
  • Surface fault-rupture hazard in urban areas

Continue reading “Call for abstracts on earthquake effects for 2 sessions at IAEG XII Congress (Torino), 2014”

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What’s up? The Friday links (54)

Something many people have been waiting for happened last week. Judge Marco Billi explained his verdict in the L’Aquila case. In a 950 page document he published the so-called “motivazione”, stating that “the deficient risk analysis was not limited to the omission of a single factor, but to the underestimation of many risk indicators and the correlations between those indicators.” This should have been understood by the scientists, but instead they delivered a “superficial, approximate and generic” analysis. Continue reading “What’s up? The Friday links (54)”

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Annals of Geophysics Vol. 55 – Active Tectonics in the Mediterranean and Europe

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. Continue reading “Annals of Geophysics Vol. 55 – Active Tectonics in the Mediterranean and Europe”

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What’s up? The Friday links (51)

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. Continue reading “What’s up? The Friday links (51)”