Christoph Grützner

A new paper by Esposito et al. has been published in Springer’s Landslide Science and Practice that will help to better constrain intensities on the ESI scale. Landslides induced by twelve moderate to strong earthquakes events during the last 300 yrs have been analyzed. The authors calculated distance vs. magnitude and distance vs. ESI epicentral intensity relationships, similar to the famous correlations by Keefer (1984). more

The latest issue of the Seismological Research Letters (SRL) has at least three papers dealing with topics interesting for paleoseismologists.

Hinzen et al. studied the rotation of objects (e.g., monuments) during the L’Aquila earthquake of 2009. They scanned the rotated objects with a high-res laser scanner, built discrete-element-models from the data and simulated the shaking necessary to cause the deformation. The results help to better estimate earthquake parameters from earthquake archaeological effects (EAEs).

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The INQUA Early Career Researcher inter-congress meeting will take place from 2 – 6 December, 2013 at Wollongong University, Australia. The meeting will bring together young earth scientists with a research focus on the Quaternary, from grad students to PostDocs. Thematic workshops on scientific writing and Quaternary science will be held and you’ll have the chance to discuss with colleagues fromn all over the world. The application deadline for travel support is 15 September, abstract submission and registration should be made before 1 October. There will be a Special Issue in INQUA’s journal Quaternary International in support of this meeting. This is a unique chance for ECRs, so spread the word and submit articles!  more

From 14-18 October 2013 a field training course will take place in Central Argentina. The course and a workshop are organized by the Sam-GeoQuat Group, the topic is: “From the Pampean Ranges to the North Pampa: Tectonic and climatic forcing on the Late Quaternary landscape evolution of Central Argentina”. Deadline for registration is 30 August, so hurry if you are interested. Download the 1st circular (pdf, <1 MB) here: 1-course-sam-geoquat2013 more

A new paper in Tectonophysics deals with the use of terrestrial LiDAR for identifying the slip vectors on fault planes. Thomas Wiatr, Klaus Reicherter, Ioannis Papanikolaou, Tomás Fernandez-Steeger and Jack Mason collected and processed data from Crete island (Greece), where they scanned the scarp of the Spili Fault. They imaged numerous kinematic (slip direction) indicators like slickensides with this relatively new technique. The t-LiDAR data were then compared to traditional compass measurements in order to get an idea about the derivation betwen old-school measurements and high-tech methods.  more

A course on Paleoseismology and Archeoseismology will be held at the Annual Meeting of the Union Geofisica Mexicana on 2 and 3 November 2013. The course will be coordinated by Víctor Hugo Garduño. Also, we would like to advertise three special sessions on paleoseismology, faults, and active tectonics at the same meeting:

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Following Evelyn’s call for geological/geographical/funny signs in the field, I post some nice ones that I came across during the last years. Check out the Accretionary Wedge #58 for more signs! more

Bergen University currently advertises a post-doc position in tectonics and surface processes, mainly involving modelling surface processes along active faults. It is a joint project with Patience Cowie, Rob Gawthorpe and Ritske Huismans. The deadline is 5th August. Find more information on Jobbnorge.no. more

Todays field work image is again by Elisa Kagan and shows a damaged stalagmite in the Soreq Cave near Jerusalem. Damaged stalagmites were used to reconstruct earthquake recurrence intervals. more

Elisa Kagan sent me this nice field photo of the day – a drill core containing mass-movement evidence from the Dead Sea:

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