Christoph Grützner

The Bulletin of the Geological Society of Greece (BGSG) is inviting papers for a Special Issue on the 2021 Northern Thessaly, Greece, Earthquake Sequence. This sequence included a M6.3 mainshock on March 3, followed 32 hours later by a M6.0 event and a M5.6 event on March 12, and thousands of smaller aftershocks. This was the most significant earthquake sequence in northern Thessaly in 80 years, and the first large events in this area of Greece since the major upgrades of the seismological, strong motion and geodetic networks. Remote-sensing imagery is available from a number of satellites and other platforms. The sequence raises numerous questions related to fault interactions, blind faulting, near- and far-field ground motions, damage distribution, earthquake triggering, liquefaction phenomena and seismic hazard and seismotectonics of the Northern Thessaly.

The March, 2021 earthquake series in Greece ruptured a previously unmapped fault and caused severe damage in the epicentral area. The largest shock had a magnitude of M6.3. In this presentation, Athanassios Ganas and colleagues summarize their first observations from space geodesy and field evidence of earthquake environmental effects.

On 3 March, 2021, an earthquake of magnitude M_W6.3 hit northern Thessaly in Greece. According to the USGS, the hypocentre was at 11.5 km depth. Normal faulting occurred either on a plane dipping 55° to the SW or on a plane dipping 36° to the NE. The quake caused a lot of damage in the village of Tyrnavos (Τύρναβος) and the surrounding areas. Widespread liquefaction was also observed. On 4 March, 2021, a mb5.8 aftershock occurred. Our colleagues S. Pavlides, A. Chatzipetros, S. Sboras, E. Kremastas and A. Chatziioannou have prepared a first field report in which they document the environmental effects of the quake.

The 2021 meeting on “Intraplate Active Tectonics and Seismicity in Central/Western Europe“ will take place on 23 March, 2021. These meetings were held before traditionally in several countries, this year it will be held  via Zoom. The meeting used to be organised in the Euregio area, Aachen/NRW, Belgium and the Netherlands, but is now opened up to include more regions, as there is a joint topic that connects many places: intraplate tectonics.

Today’s list is again very long. It contains a lot of really cool stuff from Central Europe and the Alps, and many interesting studies from China and Central Asia. Connoisseurs of American tectonics will also be happy I promise. Plus, quite a number of papers on methods and earthquake/fault physics in general. Enjoy reading!

Ray Weldon from the University of Oregon will talk about How better geology can improve seismic hazard estimates in Kyrgyzstan. The webinar is open for everyone interested and will be held via zoom (https://uni-jena-de.zoom.us/j/8941887790 Meeting-ID: 894 188 7790; Password: 820815).

Date: 22 February, 2021

Time: 3 pm GMT (7 am San Francisco; 3 pm London; 4 pm Berlin & Paris; 8:30 pm Delhi; 9 pm Almaty; 11 pm Beijing)

Following the 2020-12-29 magnitude 6.4 earthquake in Croatia, a late breaking session was accepted by EGU. The session The Dec. 2020 earthquake sequence in Petrinja, Croatia, and its seismotectonic and geodynamic environments will be convened by Stéphane Baize, Sara Amoroso, Lucilla Benedetti, Petra Jamšek Rupnik, Branko Kordić, Snjezana Markušić, and Bruno Pace. The deadline for abstracts is 28 February, 2021. Abstracts need to be send to the conveners by email. You’ll find the email addresses on the session website.

The Seismology and Geomorphology group at Bureau of Reclamation in Denver, CO, has just posted announcements for jobs in neotectonics for geologists. These jobs will close when they have received 125 applications. See all details here: https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/591713100

and here: https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/591779300

The recognition of sedimentological traces of earthquakes in the form of seismites within Pleistocene sediments is the main objective of the GREBAL project (Recognition of traces left by earthquakes in Pleistocene sediments affected by glacio- isostatic rebound in the Baltic Sea Basin). The investigations focus primarily on Poland, Germany, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Project leader Małgorzata (Gosia) Pisarska-Jamroży has summed up new results from this international research effort.

This time we have a lot of papers on the active tectonics of the Americas, especially along their west coast. Of course on the west coast you say? Sure, but the recent M5.6 in Guyana, a shallow thrust event in a seemingly aseismic area, reminded us that such quakes can basically happen everywhere and at any time – they are just rare and hard to find in the geological record. Enjoy reading!