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Workshop ‘Earthquake activity and hazard in northwest Europe’, Belgium, 15 October, 2015

Our colleagues in Belgium have reasons to celebrate! At the Membach station they’re monitoring seismic activity for 40 years now, and 20 years ago the superconducting gravimeter started working. To commemorate this the Royal Observatory of Belgium and the Public Services of Wallonia organize a scientific workshop on Earthquake activity and hazard in northwest Europe. The workshop will be held on 15 October 2015 at the Gileppe Dam Tower.

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Fucino2015 conference – Program out now!

The most important paleoseismology event of the year is just a few days ahead and we’re all excited to meet in sunny Italy. The 6th INQUA International Workshop on Active Tectonics Paleoseismology and Archaeoseismology will be held from 19-24 April 2015 in Pescina, Fucino Basin, Italy. The meeting will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the devastating 1915 Fucino earthquake. Make sure to check the final program which is now available for download at the meeting website: download here (PDF, 9 mb).

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Workshop of the SARA Project (South America Risk Assessment) on “Inventory of Hazardous Structures of South America” & Workshop of the 1311 INQUA project. Santiago, CHILE, 17-20 November, 2014

The gathering of the South American Neotectonic Group took place at the Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago as a departure point of the scheduled activities of the “Inventory of Hazardous Structures of South America” project, a topic layer of the South America Risk Assessment (SARA) effort (see previous post at here). This convocation also hosted a meeting of the INQUA SAm-GeoQuat IFG and the 1311 Project.

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2nd Historical Earthquake Colloquium on the Rhine Graben and Intraplate Quakes – May 2015 in Strasbourg

Strasbourg : "La Petite France"

The 2nd Historical Earthquake Colloquium will be held in Strasbourg, France, from 12-13 May, 2015. It focusses on Major Historical Earthquakes of the Rhine Graben and Intraplate Europe – From archives to comparative seismotectonics.

Following the first edition dedicated to historical earthquakes held in Freiburg (May 19 and 20, 2014), this meeting will focus on seismological studies of the Rhine Graben and intraplate Europe. The meeting will also address the relationships between recent seismicity, non-instrumental earthquakes and their seismotectonic characteristics. Contributions on historical, instrumental seismology and induced seismicity
are welcome. We also encourage presentations in seismotectonics, paleoseismology, archeoseismology and seismic hazard assessment.
We propose three sessions:

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Paleoearthquakes identified in W Nepal – seismic hazard higher than expected?

An interesting paper has been published in Nature Geoscience by Murphy et al.: Limit of strain partitioning in the Himalaya marked by large earthquakes in western Nepal. It doesn’t happen too often that paleoseismological papers are published in this journal and it’s also not too often that authors publish such beautiful photos. The authors identified a more than 60 km long rupture in W Nepal with 10 m of surface offset (strike-slip with a normal component). 14C dating points to seismic activity between AD 1165 and 1400. That’s pretty surprising for many reasons: Continue reading “Paleoearthquakes identified in W Nepal – seismic hazard higher than expected?”

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Miners in Poland rescued after M4.6 earthquake caused tunnel collapse

Did you think there was no earthquake hazard in Central Europe? Don’t worry unless you live in Italy, Greece, or Turkey? Wrong! There’s significant hazard not only in W Germany, S Spain and on the Balkan Peninsula – take into account mining induced events, too…

An earthquake of magnitude 4.6 occurred in SW Poland last night in very shallow depth. 19 copper miners were trapped inside the mine for hours after a tunnel collapsed and communication was cut. All miners were rescued, one suffered minor injuries.

The area is known as the Lubin mining area (coal and copper) and one of the hot spots in Central Europe’s seismicity. Continue reading “Miners in Poland rescued after M4.6 earthquake caused tunnel collapse”

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Has Roger Bilham been deported from India because of his seismic hazard warnings?

A new story came up recently that sounds like the L’Aquila case, but the other way round. Dr. Roger Bilham from the University of Colorado, a well-known earthquake researcher, was denied entry to India earlier this year. He was on a flight to Bhutan and supposed to change planes in New Delhi when Indian officials sent him back to the plane he just arrived on. Officially, he was accused with having the wrong type of visa. Himself and many colleagues, however, are sure that he was deported because he stated that the seismic hazard in India is underestimated. Continue reading “Has Roger Bilham been deported from India because of his seismic hazard warnings?”