Christoph Grützner

Dear friends of active tectonics and paleoseismology,

Although the PATA Days in New Zealand are still five months away, it will be a long flight for most of us and I suggest to think about a good read on the plane already. Below you will find the latest publications that you may find interesting. If you prefer a good old hardcover book, why not buy Minoan Earthquakes right now? Enjoy reading! more

A special issue on sub-aquatic paleoseismology has been published in Marine Geology. The volume 384 ‘Subaquatic paleoseismology: records of large Holocene earthquakes in marine and lacustrine sediments‘ collects papers on marine and lacustrine mass movements that can be used to decipher the earthquake history. The contributions span a wide range of different settings, from the famous Cascadia sites to Greece, and are based on presentations from the International Sedimentological Congress in Geneva (August 2014) and the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco (December 2014). more

Today’s paper list is rather long; presumably all the papers written during the winter are coming to publication now. We have lots of different topics today, so I will skip the summary and just say: Enjoy reading! more

The registration for the 2017 PATA Days INQUA meeting (International meeting on Paleoseismology, Archaeoseismology & Active Tectonics) in New Zealand is now open. Safe the dates 13th – 16th November 2017 and make sure to check out the wonderful field trip options.

Registration website: https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/News-and-Events/Events/PATA/Registration

See you all in New Zealand in November!

This very interesting job offer was sent around by our colleague Beverly Goodman-Tchernov:

Past tsunami events have impacted the Israeli coastline, and future tsunamis are anticipated.  Physical evidence exists both in historical written records and sedimentological field deposits. Incorporating physical evidence with computational modeling makes it possible to better understand the magnitude of past events and create realistic predictions for the future. The project is in collaboration with Geological Survey of Israel, Virginia Tech, IOLR, and the University of Haifa. It will use multi-sourced data to produce modeling scenarios for past tsunamis and produce a complex reference set of theoretical scenarios to be used in practical real-time hazard assessments. more

[UPDATE 2017-05-14: The links now lead to the free version of the paper, available until 30 June.]

Together with my colleagues I have published a new paper in which we describe a methodology for mapping the shallow architecture of large sedimentary basins with minimum effort and high resolution. We use two geophysical methods and combine them with point information from shallow drillings to identify different types of alluvial, fluvial, and aeolian sediments in the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia. We then show that our results fit well with a remote sensing approach. Although we did not target active faults in our study, the methodology is well suitable for detecting deformed/offset sediments without surface expression due to high erosion or sedimentation rates. That’s why I feel the study is of interest for the fault-hunting community. more

The organisers of the PATA Days 2017 in New Zealand have provided details on the planned field trips. There will be a 1-day field trip at the start of meeting, and an optional 3-day post-meeting field trip. Some of the field trip details are not yet finalised because we don’t know the state of road access to some areas impacted by the Kaikoura earthquake. They will post a final itinerary in early November. Have a look at the programme and enjoy the magnificient field photos!

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It’s just a few months after the Kaikoura earthquake and now the first papers have been published already. Today’s paper round-up also includes studies on dating tsunami boulders, turbidite paleoseismology, paleoseismology in the Tien Shan, the recent Italy and New Zealand earthquakes, and earthquakes and social media. Enjoy reading! more

The city of Cusco in Perú has been hit by damaging earthquakes several times in its long history. In Inka times a strong earthquake destroyed parts of the city, and the Spanish invaders documented an earthquake that happened in 1650. Three hundred years later, in 1950, an earthquake destroyed large parts of modern Cusco and in 1986 a M6.1 event also led to damages in the city. In order to better understand the active normal faulting in the region, INGEMMET has launched the project Cusco-PATA (Paleoseismology, Archaeoseismology and Active Tectonics – “pata” also means “scarp” in Quechua). The project brings together scientists from Perú, Spain, France, and the UK. The 2017 field campaign started in mid-April with work on the archaeological sites in and around Cusco and paleoseismological trenching of the Pachatusan Fault. more

Today in the paper round-up (April 2017): Active Tectonics of the Makran, postseismic deformation at Bam, active faults and paleoseismology in Italy, Switzerland & Alaska, the first papers on the Kaikoura earthquake, tsunamis in Chile and the Western Mediterranean, and faults in Mexico. Enjoy reading! more