Christoph Grützner

Call for application of 11 PhD positions in the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Network “TREAD: daTa and pRocessess in sEismic hAzarD” project:

https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/59623

Deadline for applications: April 15, 2023

All PhD positions shall start the latest by October 31, 2023.

The aim of TREAD is to train a new generation of researchers to tackle the challenges of earthquake forecasting in complex tectonic settings using integrated observations and physics.

The UNESCO World Heritage site “Caliphal City of Medina Azahara” in southern Spain was built in the 10^th Century by the first Caliph of al-Andalus, Abd al-Rahman III. The destruction and consequent abandonment of the city were thought to result from a civil war between 1009/10 AD. In a new paper, Rodríguez Pascua et al. investigate the role of an earthquake in the sudden abandonment and ruin of the city. They identified eleven types of Earthquake Archaeological Effects (EAEs), including dropped key stones in arches, tilted walls, conjugated fractures in brick-made walls, conjugated fractures and folds in regular pavements, and dipping broken corners in columns. More than 150 structural measurements imply mean ground motion direction of N140°–160° E. This indicates oriented damage to the buildings. From recent events such as the Lorca Earthquake we know that this pattern can be caused by earthquakes. The authors conclude that probably two strong earthquakes with intensities ≥VIII MSK/EMS occurred in the 11^th and 12^th centuries AD.

This months edition of the paper list surely has something interesting for everybody – a wide variety of papers both geographically and thematically. There are classical paleoseismology studies, submarine and tsunami stuff, archaeoseismology, fault physics, and much more from all around the globe. Enjoy reading and let me know if I have missed something.

INQUA TERPRO‘s project Lemon will run a winter school on “Active Tectonics And Climate Change Driven Landscape Evolution” from 16-19 January, 2023, in Palermo, Sicily.

1. During the 16th and 17th of January, there will be talks by young and experienced researchers. Attendants are invited to share research and gather helpful tips and new collaborations through Pico-Talks (a 5-minute speech followed by an interactive Q&A session).
2. During two days of fieldwork, experienced researchers will show crucial locations in western Sicily (the 18thand 19th of January).
   

   To date, scheduled field trips are:

• Relative sea-level changes evidence in the Vito Peninsula (led by Fabrizio Antonioli);
• Active tectonics and its interaction with sea level changes in South Western Sicily (led by Luigi Ferranti & Pierfrancesco Burrato);
• Archaeo-seismological evidence of historical earthquakes within the Archaeological Park of Segesta (led by Carla Bottari).

Please follow the link for detailed information on the Winter School:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lU2-IeqFn5EX7J4s2hSO0wkLu8OXTJ5f/view?usp=sharing

I hope you all had a wonderful start into 2023. May it bring you health and success, great field trips, lots of data, and nice reviewers. Here’s the latest list of papers that already made it through review. Enjoy reading!

Alexander Strom and Kanatbek Abdrakhmatov will run their famous summer school again after it had to be cancelled due to Covid-19. The summer school is designed for students and will take place from 14-29 August, 2023, in Kyrgyzstan. The topics include mass movements, neotectonics, and geomorphology in the epicentral area of the M7.2 1992 Suusamyr Earthquake. Find all the details in the announcement below.

This is the last paper round-up in 2022. We have a lot of research on historical earthquakes and Asian tectonics. Don’t miss the new paper by Nurminen et al. on the updated surface rupture database. Enjoy reading!
(UPDATE 2022-12-02: I’ve added the new Alsop et al. paper because the free-to-read link expires in 50 days…)

Structure-from-Motion is now a standard technique for documenting outcrops and paleoseismic trenches. It is also widely used in archaeology, architecture, disaster response, etc. In a perfect world, we would always have lots of well-known ground control points (GCPs) for our 3D models, for example by using a differential GPS. However, quite often we can’t do that because we don’t have a dGPS, because we stumbled upon an outcrop by accident, because we don’t want to carry the tripod to the top of a summit, etc. The problem is that without GCPs we might end up with funny errors in our model. Ian Pierce has written a tutorial about how to overcome many of these problems by combining SfM with the scans of the iPad’s and iPhone’s built-in lidar sensor: https://neotectonic.github.io/posts/iOS_Surveying/

Thanks Ian!!

It’s early November – time for the latest paper roundup. This time there are many earthquake studies from China and California. New Zealand and Australia got some good coverage, too, but there’s also news from Central Europe. Plus, burglargrams! Enjoy reading.

Within the Italian Recovery and Resilience Plan (NPRR/PNRR), the University “Federico II” of Naples offers 1 PhD position with the title “Earthquakes and Volcanoes”. The project will be focused on the study of active faults and seismic hazard. The study area will be mostly located in Southern Apennines. The deadline for application is the 3rd November 2022.
More information can be found at the website: http://www.unina.it/en_GB/didattica/post-laurea/dottorati-di-ricerca/bandi-di-ammissione

For details, please contact Luigi Ferranti (luigi.ferranti@unina.it) or Francesco Iezzi (francesco.iezzi@unina.it).