» This was the virtual PATA short meeting 2020

2020-12-27 | Christoph Grützner in Meeting, PATA days | one response

On 18 December we held a short virtual PATA meeting, since the in-person meeting to be held in Chile had to be postponed to 2021. The PATA Days (Paleoseismology, Active Tectonics, Archaeoseismology) are the main event of INQUA TERPRO‘s earthquake science community, led by the project TPPT (Terrestrial Processes Perturbed by Tectonics). Most of us are starving for joint field trips and personal contacts, but it was nice to at least see everyone online – more than 170 people attended the 1.5 hrs event. The five main topics were:

Update on INQUA TERPRO

Jim McCalpin, the president of TERPRO, informed about the current state of affairs in INQUA and the new funding situation. If you haven’t done so, please have a look here: https://inqua.org/funding

Presentation of the 2020 short abstracts

The organizing committee put together 75 short abstracts originally submitted to the 2020 meeting. That’s great because it has been so long since the last PATA Days and we all have to wait for another year. Download the abstract volume here: https://www.patadayschile.cl/.

An appetizer on the earthquake geology of Chile

The organizers presented a short tour of the Mejillones peninsula, where the 2021 PATA Days will take place. Surely an astonishing place! The registration for Chile2021 has re-opened and a few places are still available. Visit https://www.patadayschile.cl/ for more info!

Info on PATA 2022 in France and PATA 2023 in China

In 2022, PATA Days will move to France. Stéphane Baize, leader of TPPT, gave a short preview on the planned programme and talked briefly about the unusual surface ruptures of the 2019 Le Teil Earthquake. The 2023 PATA Days will be held in Chengdu, China. The organisers presented first information on the venue and the planned field trip. There’s so much interesting geology to see there and we’re all looking forward to getting more closely in touch with the Chinese paleoseismology community.

Invited lecture by Tom Rockwell

The last part of the virtual meeting was an invited lecture by Tom Rockwell on “Advancements in paleoseismology and seismic hazard from fault architecture, damage zones and earthquake directivity along crustal faults“. Tom talked about pulverization, the difference between long and short strike-slip faults, the width of damage zones, frictional heat, and much more. This was a highly inspiring talk that shed light on somewhat unusual approaches to paleoseismological problems.