This is a guest post by Simone Bello from the Università degli Studi G. d’Annunzio Chieti e Pescara, Italy.

The QUIN project (QUaternary fault strain INdicators database) stems from the initiative of a group of researchers to make the structural-geological data of the potentially seismogenic faults cropping out along the entire Apennines in Italy available to the scientific community.

Strain and regional stress databases of active deformation patterns are largely available in the literature but are almost exclusively derived from earthquakes and geodetic data. However, in areas such as Italy, where the regional stress field has remained unchanged over the last few million years, the analysis of structural data relevant for seismogenic purposes can be extended at least to the overall Quaternary time interval. QUIN was born with this assumption. It is designed to integrate, unify, and elaborate high-detailed geologic information on potentially seismogenic faults and provides data on the location, attitude, kinematics, and deformation axes of Fault Striation Pairs (FSPs) measured along Quaternary faults.

The PATA Days are the meeting on Paleoseismology, Active Tectonics, and Archaeoseismology, organised within the framework of INQUA‘s TERPRO commission. The official website has been launched, containing all infos on the programme, field trips, grant applications, the venue, the abstract template, and the deadlines. Check it out: https://www.patadayschile.cl.

Abstract submission will open 4 March and the deadline for the 4-page abstracts is 29 March. No short abstracts this time.

See you all in Chile in October!

Enjoy our latest papers on large earthquake and active faults!

Here’s the latest list of papers on paleoseismology and related fields. Interesting stuff from the NZ and US seismic hazard models, a photo of the fault scarp that formed underwater in the 2011 Tohoku-oki Earthquake, and much more. Have a great 2024 everyone!

Our colleague Tejpal Singh and his co-guest editors Riccardo Caputo and Chittenipattu P. Rajendran invite contributions to their special issue “Earthquake Geology of Plate Margins and Plate Interiors: Integrating Classical Methods with New Approaches” to be published in Geosciences. Please find more info here:

– Focus: Mexican Pacific coast – Subduction Zone
– Responsibilities: Field and lab research on coastal geomorphology and tectonic deformation, or/and earthquake, and tsunami geology
– Qualifications: Recent Ph.D. in earth sciences, desirable background in either coastal geomorphology, earthquake geology, sedimentology, Quaternary dating, microfossils analytical techniques

In a new study, Rosell et al. look into the earthquake history of the Tambomachay Fault near Cusco in Peru. Cusco has been hit by damaging earthquakes in 1650, 1950, and 1986, and there is also some evidence for another earthquake during Inca times between AD 1418–1471. Very little is known about the causative faults. There is also very limited information on older events. The closest fault to the city is a 20 km-long normal fault at the northern margin of the Cusco Basin, the Tambomachay Fault. Here we constrained the fault’s Holocene slip rate by dating offset lateral moraines, and we identified three Holocene surface ruptures in a paleoseismological trench. The study was recently published open access in τeκτoniκa.

Dear Colleagues,

We are aiming to organize a special issue titled: Earthquakes and active tectonics in regions of slow lithospheric deformation: towards a re-evaluation of Stable Continental Regions (SCRs). This special issue will complement a session on Intraplate Tectonics and Seismicity at the 37^th International Geological Congress to be held in Busan, Korea in September 2024.  The abstract for the IGC session is below, followed by our solicitation for contributions to the special issue.  If you are interested in submitting an article to the special issue, please let us know a tentative title your list of authors by the 15^th of December 2023.

We hope that you will join us in Busan and consider submitting your intraplate research to our special issue.

Sincerely,

The editors: Klaus Reicherter, Beau Whitney, Sambit Naik, Pierre Arroucau, Christoph Grützner, Stéphane Baize, Jim McCalpin

This will be the last paper list of the year, time is flying. We have classical paleoseismological studies, historical earthquake research, a few papers on secondary effects, but also studies looking into more general physics questions of large earthquakes. Enjoy reading!

This has become a long list again, and I partly blame the New Zealanders who are currently publishing a lot of studies related to their new hazard model. Really cool work! But of course the inclined readers will also find other gems for their taste. As always – please send me paleoseismology studies that I have missed. Enjoy reading!