Morelia2012 workshop has started – Tue, 20 November

The 3rd INQUA-IGCP 567 Int’l workshop on Earthquake Geology, Paleoseismology and Archaeoseismology has started here in Morelia, Mexico. We are going to cover the sessions whenever we have time to drop a few lines, however, we can not comment all talks and posters.

[Note: this post was updated on 2012-11-29, see Maria’s comment]

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the Acambay Earthquake and we went to Acambay near Mexico city to participate in the celebrations.

100th anniversary of the Acambay earthquake

Then, we went to visit four open trenches in the huge graben system where the last destructive earthquakes occurred in this region. Unfortunately, it was already pretty late…

Late night paleoseismology – visiting Pierre Lacan and Maria Ortuño’s trenches in Central Mexico.

Today (Tuesday), the scientific sessions started.

Tuesday, 20 November

The first key note lecture is by Franck Audemard about the history of paleoseismological research in Venezuela. Angela Landgraf then spoke about her paleoseismological research in Kyrgyzstan, including trenching results. Maria Ortuño presented more details on her and Pierre Lacan’s trenches in the Acambay graben system. Pedro Huerta not only showed data from his study in Venezuela, but also had impressive pictures of himself swimming and coring in a lake, trying to drill seismites. A lively discussion evolved on sedimentation rates and dating errors in lake sediments.

😎

(Klaus.) Just a note from the back: our live reporter Christoph Grützner is celebrating today his 32nd birthday, CONGRATULATIONS from the entire paleoseismicity.org team and all participants of the meeting in Morelia, especially from the president-in-chief Don Pablo Silva, and the past president Alessandro Michetti.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CHRISTOPH!

 (Christoph again)

The afternoon was dedicated to Earthquake Environmental Effects (EEEs). First, Alessandro Michetti reported on the Tec Paper to be written for the Int’l Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), then Francesca Cinti presented the geological survey of EEEs that followed the Emilia Romana EQ (Northern Italy). Takashi Azuma (whom you might know from the geo-eq-net mailing list) gave a very interesting talk on recent faulting triggered by the Tohoko M9.0 Japan EQ. Miguel Rodrigúez-Pascua’s talk was about the Acambay 1912 EQ EEEs, and finally Luca Guerrieri switched to Italy again and presented more data on the Emilia Romana event.

The session ended with a guided poster session, which was followed by a Mexican traditional food tasting.

To conclude: The first scientific sessions were pretty interesting, I expect some interesting Archaeoseismology tomorrow.

Good night y buenas noches:

Christoph

submit to reddit

Christoph Grützner

Christoph Grützner

works at the Institute of Geological Sciences, Jena University. He likes Central Asia and the Mediterranean and looks for ancient earthquakes.

See all posts Christoph Grützner

1 Comment

  • maria | 2012-11-29|16:50 (UTC)

    Hi Christoph,
    thanks for all these pictures and nice reports. Just wanted to ask you for a little change in this post, could you please change Maria Ortuño’s trenches by:
    Pierre Lacan and Maria Ortuño’s trenches

    the thing is that although this is still my research, since I am back in Spain, Pierre (now as a postdoc at the UNAM) is the one coordinating part of the trenches. The one we visited is in fact “his trench”. He was waiting for us but left the place just when we arrived because it was so dark. Then he was back but I was already in the trenches! Otherwise, he would have been in charge of the explanations…

    Thanks so much!!

Leave a Comment