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The latest paper round-up comes with interesting studies on the Mediterranean and on tsunamis (and tsunamis in the Mediterranean…), as well as cool stuff from Australia, New Zealand, the US, and Asia. Enjoy reading!

In my DFG-financed project “Earth surface response to Quaternary faulting and shallow crustal structure in the eastern Adria-Alpine collision zone and the Friulian plain” I investigate the active faults of NE Italy and western Slovenia. This project is part of the Priority Programme SPP2017 “Mountain Building Processes in 4D“. We’ve now published a paper on the activity of the Udine-Buttrio thrust fault. The paper is open access and available here.

While working on my project on distributed faulting, I dig into the literature looking for additional case studies beside those contained in the SURE (SUrface Ruptures due to Earthquakes) database.

I retrieved information on 18 normal and strike-slip events occurred between 1905 and 2011, with a magnitude range of Mw 5.9 – 8.3. I digitized rupture traces from published maps at a variable scale, dependent on the resolution of the original map. Earthquakes are from Iran (7 events), Mongolia, China, Turkey, Greece (2 events for each country), Italy, Kenya and Japan (1 event).

This is the first paper round-up of the year and I think it’s perhaps a new record. So many studies have been published, but maybe it’s just because nobody has done much in the last week of December. Whatever it is – there are some pretty interesting papers in the list. Tsunami biomarkers! Kaikoura EQ news! Historic EQs! New software! Ridgecrest & Palu! And so much more. Enjoy reading!

A Special Issue on continental strike-slip faults is planned in Mediterranean Geoscience Reviews, a new Springer journal: The 20th anniversary of the Eastern Marmara Earthquakes: Active tectonics of continental strike-slip faults

[…] continental strike-slip faults are complex structures on which the deformation is commonly distributed among a number of parallel to subparallel fault strands, making them in places significantly different in behaviour from their oceanic counterparts.

Thus, the goal of this issue is to publish a collection of high-quality papers on active tectonics of continental strike-slip faults around the globe using various disciplines, including but not limited to, tectonic geomorphology, paleoseismology, structural geology, crustal deformation, tectonic geodesy and seismology of continental strike-slip faults.

We hope you had a great start into 2020. May the new year bring exciting projects, secure funding, safe travels, and positive reviews. Quite a number of interesting studies have been published in the last few weeks, this is the latest paper round-up. Enjoy reading!

A recent study presented at the GSA meeting concludes that the UNESCO World Heritage site of Machu Picchu in Peru was intentionally built on faulted bedrock in order to ease the quarrying of the huge blocks used as construction material (Menegat, 2019). But has Machu Picchu seen big earthquakes in its lifetime? And if so, can it tell us something about their magnitude? After all, there are plenty of earthquakes in Peru, not only at the subduction zone but also in the Andes (e.g., Wimpenny et al., 2018). Some strong instrumental events occurred less than 100 km away from the Inca site. However, in the area of Machu Picchu we knew little about strong earthquakes. That’s why in 2016 a group of researchers from Peru, France, and the UK including myself started to investigate the active faults around Cusco and archaeoseismological damage to Machu Picchu and other famous Inca sites nearby in the CUSCO-PATA project.

Shopping is stressful, reading new papers is exciting. Why not lean back in your favourite comfy chair, enjoy a hot tea and see what’s new in paleoseismology and related fields? These are the latest papers on paleoseismology, earthquakes, and active tectonics.

Text: Gösta Hoffmann with contributions by Michaela Falkenroth, Valeska Decker, Bastian Schneider and Christoph Grützner

“The beaches in Oman are pristine.” What sounds like an introductory sentence to a tourist brochure has scientific significance. Natural conditions without anthropogenic overprint are characteristic for vast stretches along the 1700 km coastline of Oman from the Strait of Hormuz in the north to the border of Yemen in the south. This situation allows geological research addressing Quaternary sea-level change on various timescales spanning from minutes to millennia. Over the last couple of years, we carried out research funded by the Omani Government and the German Research Foundation (DFG). Our findings are currently published in a series of papers (Schneider et al. 2018; Ermertz et al. 2019; Falkenroth et al. 2019, subm.; Hoffmann et al. 2020a, b) and are briefly summarised here.

Today we have a number of studies on “classic” paleoseismology, but also a fair share of tsunami and historical seismicity/archaeoseismology research. Plus, some very interesting papers on methods and concepts. Not to forget the first one in the list that presents an extremely useful surface rupture database. I may write a long blog post on this one, soon. Enjoy reading!