Christoph Grützner

Guest blog by Christopher B. DuRoss from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

The Great Salt Lake is the largest low-relief, terminal basin in the western United States. In a collaborative effort led by earthquake geologists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Geologic Hazards Science Center (Golden, Colorado) and marine geophysicists from the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center (Santa Cruz, California), we set out to explore whether this shallow, biogenic carbonate basin holds acoustic and sedimentary archives of past earthquake ruptures (DuRoss et al., 2026).

For some reason–and it may very well just be my personal bias–today’s list has a lot of studies on active tectonics of the Americas and Central Asia. But then the western US and the Andes plus Central Asia make up a good portion of the total seismic moment release apart from subduction quakes, so perhaps this is not unusual. At some point I’d like to make a world map showing seismic moment release vs. number and distribution of scientific studies…
Enjoy reading and please let me know if I’ve missed something.

This month we have many case studies from all around the world, including classical paleoseismology, historical data, and tectonic geomorphology. But there are also studies more leaning towards the methodological side of our discipline, and who would have thought that an entire new type of fault systems was just discovered? Enjoy reading!

Maria Teresa Ramírez-Herrera is seeking to fill a postdoc position in her group at UNAM, Mexico. Application deadline is 1 June, 2026:

The conference proceedings of the 13th International INQUA meeting on Paleoseismology, Active Tectonics and Archaeoseismology – PATA Days 2026 are now published and available for download: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20043287.  The volume contains all submitted and reviewed extended and short abstracts on 135 pages. The meeting was held in Antigua Guatemala from 30 Jan – 05 Feb, 2026. 

Cite the volume as:

Gordillo, C, Flores, O., Grützner, C., Niemi, T. M., & Obrist-Farner, J. (2026). Proceedings of the 13th International INQUA meeting on Paleoseismology, Active Tectonics and Archaeoseismology – PATA Days 2026. 30 Jan – 05 Feb, 2026, Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodod.20043287.

You can find the field trip guides (and also the abstract volume) for download here: http://pata-days.org/downloads/ – as well as those of all previous PATA meetings. Enjoy reading!

Here is the latest paper list with a nice variety of topics and also geographically quite divers I think. Enjoy reading, and let me know if I have missed a paper.

The 7th Fault2SHA Workshop – New Frontiers in Earthquake Rupture Forecasting and Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment will take place in Vienna, Austria, from 6–8 July 2026. A few additional places have become available. If you would like to participate or know someone who will, please complete or share the registration form. The registration fee is €300. A reduced fee of €150 is available for PhD students and early postdoctoral researchers (i.e., those who obtained their PhD after 1 January 2024). Deadline for registration and payment is 30 April 2026. Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

For news and updates about the workshop and related activities, visit: https://fault2sha.net/7th-workshop/. 

This month’s list has a couple of studies on the 2023 Türkiye earthquakes and the Mediterranean area. Also included are a few methodological studies that might be of interest to the paleoseismology community. Enjoy reading!

The Motagua Fault in Guatemala is part of the North American – Caribbean plate boundary. It ruptured in a M7.5 earthquake in 1976, killing 23,000 people and causing ca. 230 km of surface ruptures. Very little was known, however, about previous strong earthquakes on this fault. In a new study, we identify five surface-rupturing events in the last 1300 years, including the 1976 quake. We opened a paleoseismological trench and compared our results with archaeological information from nearby sites and historical earthquake data. 

The 13th International INQUA Meeting on Paleoseismology, Active Tectonics and Archaeoseismology (PATA Days) was held from 2-5 February, 2026, in Antigua Guatemala. We commemorated the catastrophic M7.5 earthquake of 4 February, 1976. A pre-meeting field trip from 30 Jan – 1 Feb took the participants to several paleoseismological and archaeoseismological sites along the Motagua Fault, the plate boundary between the North American and Caribbean Plates. After the meeting, another field trip focussed on the neotectonics of the triple junction west of Guatemala City. 16 ECRs and DCRs were supported with INQUA travel grants organized by TERPRO’s project CHAMP. Here’s a short summary about the field trips and the meeting.