Thanks to Alessandro I came across this incredible video of liquefaction occuring in the Tokyo Central Park during the M9.0 Japan earthquake. We can see a lot of very interesting features. First, cracks are opening, perfectly visible on the paved road and the cobble. Then we see the differential moving along those cracks, they are widening and narrowing and there’s vertical movement as well. Soon, the first ruptures appear in the meadows, despite the soft sediment there. more
The Japan M9.0 earthquake and the following tsunami are well documented by videos, photographs, sea-level measurements, seismograms etc. But how do we recognize such huge events if they happened some thousands of years ago? If there’s no historical report we would use earthquake environmental effects (EEE) for characterizing the earthquake and paleoseismicity. Let’s look what would be left from a 5000 year old earthquake and tsunami. more
An earthquake with a magnitude of Mw9.0 has occured 130 km east of Honshu, Japan in a depth of ~25 km. This had been the fourth or fifth strongest earthquake to be recorded by instrumental seismology. The quake caused significant destruction to the Honshu Island and triggered a tsunami that destroyed a number of harbours. In some places (Sendai), tsunami heights were reported to exceed 10 m. A tsunami warning has been released for wide parts of the Pacific, but in Hawaii only 1 m was observed, therefore the warnings for the US West Coast have been lowered. more
In the framework of IGCP567, Dr. Andrey Korjenkov is convening a special IGCP567 session and field trip on Earthquake Archaeology and Palaeoseismology in Central Asia.
All information on the international symposium can be found in the first circular (and registration form).
If you are interested to contribute to this session and/or participate to the field trip, please contact Dr. Korjenkov (akorjen@mail.kg) as soon as possible. The final deadline is 15 March.
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I have won my first WoGE on Friday, Florian had a great image of the Okavango delta in Botswana. So I have the great pleasure to host the actual quiz. The rules are simple: Find out the position of the image placed below (provide coordinates) and give a short description of the geological features in the comments. The first to find out has the honor to host the next quiz on his (geo-) blog. I do not invoke the “Schott rule” since I chose to show only a small detail of the subject of interest. This means: Let the games begin! more
The Christchurch earthquake was the main topic of the Geoblogosphere this week. A great analysis on the effects was provided by Dave Petley in his Landslide Blog. Highly Allochthonous reasoned on seismic lensing, Ontario Geofish posted a lot on building security, and countless news sites came up with photos and reports. Frank Taylor, who hosted the GoogleEarthBlog before he left for a sailing trip around the world, was in Christchurch next to the Cathedral when the quake happened. On his Tahina Expedition website he reports on his experiences.
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A M6.3 earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand on 22 February (21 Feb in UTC), leaving at least 75 people dead and hundreds injured or missing. Hundreds of houses were destroyed, including the Christchurch Cathedral, and damages will probably sum up to some billion dollars. On 4 September 2010 (3 Sept in UTC), a M7.0 event struck Christchurch, but then no one was killed. So: what’s the difference between the two events?
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In its latest issue, EOS reports on the European Science Foundation conference “Submarine Paleoseismology – The Offshore Search of Large Holocene Earthquakes” which was held in Obergurgl, Austria from 11-16 September 2010.
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The Accredtionary Wedge #30 blog carnival hosted by Mountain Beltway came up with a tasting idea in January: The Geological Bake Sale. Explore and enjoy thematic food like the moon surface cake, the pillow lava bread and the debris flow vegetables. If you create a sweet fault or a tasty trench, we promise to publish it on paleoseismicity.org. more
Oxford University Press is currently selling selected books with up to 75% off. The promotion covers dozens of books, among them titles on Archeology, GIS and Geography.
Most titles are related to human sciences, but there might be something interesting for paleoseismologists and earthquake geologists, too. more
