The 7th International INQUA Workshop on Paleoseismology, Active Tectonics and Archaeoseismology (PATA Days) took place last week in Crestone, CO. The meeting was organised by Jim McCalpin who did an amazing job – thanks Jim for inviting us to Crestone and for this wonderful conference. Prior to the meeting a six-day road trip to the Faults of the Wild West lead a group of ~20 people to the legendary sites of western US faults: Borah Peak, the Tetons, Wasatch, etc. On 29 May most participants gathered in Denver where the icebreaker took place. Early in the morning next day we started with a pre-meeting field trip to Crestone, driving into the Rocky Mountains, passing South Park, and arriving at Crestone just on time for lunch. more
An interesting summer school will be held near Cologne, Germany, from 21-27 August 2016. The GSGS Summer School on Dates and Rates of Change in the Quaternary is devoted to teach all different kinds of Quaternary dating methods such as Ar/Ar, cosmogenic nuclides, luminescence, palaeolimnology, palaeomagnetism, radiocarbon and tephrochronology. It is designed for PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and advanced master’s students in geosciences and will be held in English. Deadline for application is 10 June. The workshop is free for all accepted participants. The summer school is funded through the Institutional Strategy of the University of Cologne and supported by the Geoverbund ABC/J. That’s a great opportunity, make sure to apply before it’s too late!
Thanks to Silke for spreading the news.
The IGCP project 639 deals with sea-level changes, coastal earthquakes, and inundation by storms and tsunami: “Sea-level changes: From minutes to millenia”. The first meeting in Oman will take place from 9-14 November 2016 and will cover all science under the IGCP project 639 banner. Make sure to put this on your agenda if you’re interested.
Further details will be forthcoming in the second announcement in the next month. The abstract submission deadline will likely be 1 August, 2016.
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Just a friendly reminder that the deadline for abstract submission for the EGU general assembly 2016 in Vienna is tomorrow, January 13th at 13:00 CET/12:00 GMT. If you are still looking for a session to submit your abstract to, please have a look at our session about Active Faults and the Earthquake Cycle (TS4.2/NH4.16/SM3.8)
By the way, the Vienna Basin is the perfect place to discuss active faults, as you see on our newest gravel pit outcrop. If you interested in having a closer look at this fault during the EGU – let me know…
Hopefully see you soon in Vienna,
Esther, Kris, Matthieu, Angela
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The 19th INQUA Congress in Nagoya has now finished. It was a great gathering of scientists working in Quaternary. Overall 1800 researchers from 69 countries participated. Early Career Scientists (ECR) had a very strong presence (many thanks to INQUA for promoting ECRs). The venue offered enough time for discussions and was supported by several pre- mid and post congress fieldtrips. Two days were fully covered by active tectonics and paleoseismology studies and another one by tsunami related studies.
Our active tectonics and paleoseismology colleagues Frank Audemard and Alessandro Michetti have been re-elected as Vice-President of INQUA and President of the TERPRO Commission (Terrestrial Processes, Deposits, and History) respectively. Many thanks to Koji Okumura for the fantastic organization of the meeting and his successful work within INQUA as the former Vice-President. The next Congress has now been scheduled for Dublin (Ireland) in 2019, so be prepared.
In the meantime we will have the opportunity to meet in future meetings and workshops of our Focus Group on Active Tectonics and Paleoseismology.
Tomorrow, 18th June 2015, we – many voluntary student helpers and staff from RWTH Aachen University and the Geoverbund ABC-J are organizing with the Einhard-Gymnasium in Aachen, with 11-14 year old pupils the FIRST German Shake Out around midday. In special lectures and lab courses we have prepared the scholars for this event, but WHAT?? is a ShakeOut?
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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2015
Feliz Navidad y Prosperísimo Año Nuevo 2015
Joyeux Noel et Bonne Année 2015
Buon Natale e Bello Anno Nuovo 2015 more
Second meeting on Active Faults and Paleoseismology in two weeks, so I am on the road again. Today, the 2nd Iberfault meeting in Lorca/Murcia/Spain starts focussing on A multidisciplinary approach to the study of active faults, earthquakes and seismic risk. After the very successful first meeting in Sigüenza/Guadalajara/Spain in 2010 after four years now the city of Lorca is the host. The reason is simple: a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck the area, leaving the region with the relative high number of 9 casualties, 100 Mio. € damage and a series of scientific papers that e.g. this earthquake was anthropogenically induced by water expulsion (it was discussed here a couple of months ago by Christoph). more
In this week the 8th International Symposium on Eastern Mediterranean Geology started in Mugla/Turkey, our colleague Ersen Aksoy is one of the major organizers together with his colleagues and teams from the Mulga University, many sessions with interesting talks are scheduled, the programme lists many interesting talks on paleoseismology of the Aegean area and Turkey, and the Levant area. Yesterday, the meeting strated with keynotes from Celal Sengör (on the eastern Mediterranean tectonic framework and deformation history) and Iain Stewart (on: Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Communicating Geology to Society). Then the individual scientific sessions started with presentations on….
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During the month of March 2014, Sascha and I along with Tobi and Lauretta (BSc students from RWTH University) were in Greece for fieldwork. The fieldwork campaign started on the island of Crete; our institute at RWTH Aachen has a joint project with Mainz University to carry out paleotsunami investigations on the island. The western part of Crete was uplifted by approximately 9 m during the 21st July AD 365 earthquake and also hit by the associated tsunami. Due to the strong seismic and highly tsunamigenic activity of the nearby Hellenic Trench, it is suggested that numerous earlier tsunamis have also struck the island. more
