Christoph Grützner

The 12th international PATA Days will be held in Los Andes, Chile, 6-11 October, 2024. PATA stands for Paleoseismology, Active Tectonics, Archaeoseismology and it is the main activity of the paleoseismology community within INQUA’s TERPRO commission.

More and more papers emerge on the February, 2023 earthquakes in Turkey and the East Anatolian Fault System. Additionally, we have a database of paleoseismology studies in New Zealand (spoiler: it’s a lot!) and many more papers on paleoseismology and tectonic geomorphology. Enjoy reading!

Geomorphic indices can tell us about the tectonic activity of an area. The idea is that the landscape records the signal of active tectonics, for example in its river network, in its erosion pattern, or in its roughness. Geomorphic indices allow us to quantify this, that is, we can use standard algorithms to calculate numbers from a DEM that say ‘active’ or ‘inactive’. This is very attractive because essentially, all that is needed is a DEM and a GIS (and perhaps MATLAB). The number of papers on geomorphic indices is currently exploding, and I guess the fact that the method is so cheap and easy to apply plays a major role in that. No expensive field work, still meaningful results. But is this always true? In a new open access paper, we argue that without ground checking, probably not, at least in many cases.

This month’s paper list has an usually large number of studies on active tectonics of the Balkans and southern Europe. Is this a sampling bias? Perhaps. Don’t hesitate to send recommendations if you publish something cool that you’d like to see included. Enjoy reading!

I’m a bit late this month, so the list is a bit longer. This time we have lots of coastal and offshore studies, even a seafloor earthquake rupture! Enjoy reading.

AGU has lots of interesting sessions to offer for paleoseismologists. Our colleague Pia Victor invites contributions to her session with Shreya Arora, Laurence Audin, Christie D Rowe, Alba Mar Rodriguez Padilla: Field observations, instrumental and high-resolution satellite imaging: A vision of improved active tectonics/paleoseismology hazard assessment.

The second circular for the TERPRO INQUA summer school on Active Faults and Volcano-Tectonics, 25-28 Sept., 2023, in Naples, Italy has been published.

For many geologists the field season is up ahead or has already started, but perhaps you will find some time to read through the latest literature? Or you can use the winter season in the southern hemisphere to enjoy a good read? It would be a pity to miss some of these really interesting studies. Enjoy!

INQUA TERPRO’s project TPPT had decided to not organise PATA Days in the years with an INQUA congress, but instead to run a much smaller summer school for ECRs and DCRs. The summer school on Active Faults and Volcano-Tectonics will be held from 25-28 September in Naples (Italy). The event will be hosted by DiSTAR (Department of Earth Sciences, Enviroment and Resources , University of Naples «Federico II»).

The first two days will include lectures by researchers who will present state of the art studies on active faults. The second part includes two field trips in areas crucial for understanding active faults and the interplay between tectonics and volcanic activity. Download the circular (PDF) here.

This month’s list of papers includes the first few studies on the devastating earthquakes in Türkiye in February, 2023. Apart from that, we also have important work in archaeoseismology and great studies from New Zealand, an interesting shallow earthquake in the Tarim Basin, updates on surface displacement hazard and strain rate estimations, and papers on the Med and East Africa. Enjoy reading!