On 16 April an earthquake of magnitude Mw7.0 hit the district of Kumamoto, Kyushu Island, Japan. The quake was preceeded by a Mw6.1 foreshock one day before. It occurred on the ENE striking, right lateral Futagawa-Hinagu fault zone. Our colleague Koji Okumura from Hiroshima University has prepared a short report on this surface-rupturing event. Download the report here (PDF, 612 kb). The report will be continuously revised and corrected, so check for regular updates. Thanks Koji for providing this summary!
From 4-10 September, 2016, the 35th General Assembly of the European Seismological Commission (ESC) will be held in Trieste, Italy. Deadline for abstract submission is 30 April, early bird registration ends 31 May. The meeting covers a whole range of interesting topics, such as Earthquakes in regions of slow lithospheric deformation, active faulting and geodynamic data, secondary earthquake effects, regional studies and many more. Two sessions are probably especially interesting for the paleoseismology community:
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Plenty of paleoseismology papers have been published in late 2015 and early 2016 already! Especially those on the Gorkha earthquake made it to the news (Science and NatureGeoscience), but there is much more to discover. Check them out and – as always – tell us what we’ve missed. more
Our colleague Carlos Benavente Escóbar from the Instituto Geologico Minero Metalurgico (Peru) brought a book to my attention which was published in 2013: Neotectonics and seismic hazard of the Cusco Region. The book is in Spanish, but you will find it easy to understand what it’s about, because it is full of fascinating images of faults, fault scarps, seismites, liquefaction features, geological maps, and outcrop sketches. Have a look, it’s great! The book can be viewed online for free and is also available for download. more
A few days ago, SRL published a special issue on the Gorkha earthquakes with lots of interesting papers. I especially like the work of Angster et al. with their impressive photos of the earthquake ground effects. Make sure to download the electronic supplement to this article!
Besides this special issue, a good number of other interesting papers have been published recently on paleoseismicity, active tectonics, seismic hazard, and tsunamis. Among them is Andi’s work on the Ejina basin and Serva et al. with a introduction of using the ESI scale for earthquake hazard assessments. Enjoy reading! more
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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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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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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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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I added a couple of new papers to my literature collection last week. The studies deal with trenching in Iran and in China, tsunami research in Japan, Malta and Thailand, with archaeoseismology in Italy, and with seismic hazard of old oceanic lithosphere. Enjoy reading! more
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