Christoph Grützner

The first Environmental Hazards in Asia Conference will take place in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, from 12-15 August with a field trip from 16-20 August. This conference aims to bring together practitioners of both with a focus on the hazards across Asia. The workshop will be structured to allow exploration of the underlying physical mechanics of hazards, explore the impacts of historical events across the continent and focus on the possible approaches to minimizing future impacts. The aim is to facilitate new ideas and proposals. Funds to support travel and subsistence to up to 20 participants from across Asia are available.

May 15th – Abstract submission deadline
June 1st – Fieldtrip registration deadline
July 12th – Online registration deadline

Meeting website: https://environmentalhazardsasia.wordpress.com/

Here’s the latest list of papers. Geographically, it’s really diverse this time, from Greenland to San Andreas, S Africa, the Caucasus and back. Also in time dimension – perhaps we have the oldest paleoseismicity in our list today? Enjoy reading and let us know if we’ve missed something.

This is a guest blog by Octavi Gómez-Novell, Universitat de Barcelona, visiting researcher at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). Contact: octgomez@ub.edu

Paleoseismic data are punctual and highly localized in defined fault strands, while earthquake surface ruptures cover much larger and complex regions in comparison. This makes the identification of paleoearthquakes in trenches strongly dependent on the slip that those particular events had at each trench site, as well as on the continuity and quality of the stratigraphy for those paleoearthquakes to be dated and well-constrained in time. For this reason, paleoseismologists always seek to increase observations by trenching several sites along fault deformation zones with the premise that more observational data might: 1) complete the paleoearthquake catalogues closer to the real event count that actually occurred, 2) reduce the event age and detection uncertainties and 3) give insight about surface rupture characteristics. While all of these premises are correct and proven successful in several cases, the truth is that in a handful of other cases increasing observations can significantly difficult the correlation of datasets between sites, making such interpretations highly subjective. For instance, in very populated paleoseismic datasets and/or those with large event date uncertainties there will be multiple correlation options; which is the right one? After all, even though based on observations, paleoseismic data are interpretations, hence models that should be treated as such. Thus, can we improve correlation using numerical modelling?

Here is the latest list of papers that deal with paleoseismology, past large earthquakes, active faults, archaeoseismology, and earthquake proxies such as tsunamis. Enjoy reading and let us know if we’ve missed something.

The Seismology and Gravimetry Section of the Royal Observatory of Belgium and the Unit of Physical Geography and Quaternary of the University of Liège recruit a postdoctoral researcher in earthquake geology and tectonic geomorphology. The position is for 2 yrs, and 50% funding is already secured for an additional 5 years. Deadline is 28 March, 2024. Download the ad with all details here:

The new German Science Foundation (DFG) project “Tectonic and wave controls on the generation and preservation of marine terraces” is led by Dr. Luca Malatesta at the GFZ Potsdam and Sumiko Tsukamoto at LIAG Hanover. Within the project there is an open PhD position for luminescence dating on marine terrace sediments. The study areas are Noto Peninsula (where the Noto Peninsula earthquake occurred on the new year’s day) and Sado Island, Japan. Previous experience in luminescence dating is not required. Postdocs are also welcome to apply. The application deadline is 18^th of March. https://www.leibniz-liag.de/en/institute/career.html

Download the job advert here (PDF):

This is a guest post by Simone Bello from the Università degli Studi G. d’Annunzio Chieti e Pescara, Italy.

The QUIN project (QUaternary fault strain INdicators database) stems from the initiative of a group of researchers to make the structural-geological data of the potentially seismogenic faults cropping out along the entire Apennines in Italy available to the scientific community.

Strain and regional stress databases of active deformation patterns are largely available in the literature but are almost exclusively derived from earthquakes and geodetic data. However, in areas such as Italy, where the regional stress field has remained unchanged over the last few million years, the analysis of structural data relevant for seismogenic purposes can be extended at least to the overall Quaternary time interval. QUIN was born with this assumption. It is designed to integrate, unify, and elaborate high-detailed geologic information on potentially seismogenic faults and provides data on the location, attitude, kinematics, and deformation axes of Fault Striation Pairs (FSPs) measured along Quaternary faults.

The PATA Days are the meeting on Paleoseismology, Active Tectonics, and Archaeoseismology, organised within the framework of INQUA‘s TERPRO commission. The official website has been launched, containing all infos on the programme, field trips, grant applications, the venue, the abstract template, and the deadlines. Check it out: https://www.patadayschile.cl.

Abstract submission will open 4 March and the deadline for the 4-page abstracts is 29 March. No short abstracts this time.

See you all in Chile in October!

Enjoy our latest papers on large earthquake and active faults!

Here’s the latest list of papers on paleoseismology and related fields. Interesting stuff from the NZ and US seismic hazard models, a photo of the fault scarp that formed underwater in the 2011 Tohoku-oki Earthquake, and much more. Have a great 2024 everyone!