Richard Styron has released a new, improved version of his Global CMT viewer webmap. The earthquake data are from globalcmt.org, updated every four hours, and colour-coded by depth (purple to yellow = shallow to deep). The tool also displays a number of major faults from the ATA and HimaTibetMap databases. This webmap is a fast and easy way to find interesting earthquakes and to explore global seismicity. Plus, it’s a beautiful map. Thanks Richard for that great application!

The Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (IAG) of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences invites colleagues, geoscientists, researchers, and international experts from around the world to attend the “The International Conference on Astronomy & Geophysics in Mongolia, 2017” and we hope that you enjoy the scientific program and field-excursion, as well as the hospitality in capital Ulaanbaatar and field-excursions!
The conference will have two sections. The main section will be held in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, between 20 and 22 July of 2017 including the celebration of 60th anniversary of IAG, plenary session, oral and poster sessions. The field section “Field-excursion to Mogod co-seismic fault rupture area” (1967/01/05, Mw=7.1) will be held at Mogod soum of Bulgan province, Mongolia between 23 and 26 July, 2017.

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The Tectonic Studies Group (TSG) will organise a field trip to Death Valley in April 2017. The trip will be of particular interest for those who wish to learn more about tectono-volcanic processes, tectono-sedimentary processes, and the Basin and Range/ San Andreas system.

The trip is being organised and delivered by Phil Benson & Derek Rust of the University of Portsmouth. more

The SSA meeting in Denver (April 2017) will be full of interesting sessions on paleoseismology and earthquake geology, among them:

• The Future of Past Earthquakes, Session Chairs: David Schwartz, Ramon Arrowsmith, William Lettis, Koji Okumura, Daniela Pantosti, Thomas Rockwell
• Earthquake Geology and Paleoseismic Studies of the Intermountain West: New Methods and Findings on Seismic Hazard Characterization of Low Slip Rate Faults, Session Chairs: Seth Dee, Stephen Angster
• Earthquake Impacts on the Natural and Built Environment, Session Chairs: Eric Thompson, Kate Allstadt, Kishor Jaiswal, Nilesh Shome
• Estimating Earthquake Hazard from Geodetic Data, Session Chairs: Jeff Freymueller, Elieen Evans, Jessica Murray
• Fault Mechanics and Rupture Characteristics from Surface Deformation, Session Chairs: Lia Lajoie, Kendra Johnson, Edwin Nissen
• Intraplate Earthquakes: Central and Eastern North America and Worldwide, Session Chairs: Lillian Soto-Cordero, Christine Powell, Will Levandowski
• The Mw7.8 Kaikoura Earthquake, Session Chairs: Bill Fry, Matt Gerstenberger
• Paleoseismology of Subduction Earthquake Cycles, Session Chairs: Rob Witter, Ian Shennan
• Scaling and Empirical Relationships of Moderate to Large Earthquakes: Re-scaling or Re-thinking?, Session Chairs: Laura Peruzza, P. Martin Mai, Lucilla Benedetti
• Toppled and Rotated Objects in Recent, Historic, and Prehistoric Earthquakes, Session Chairs: Klaus-G. Hinzen, Rasool Anooshehpoor
• Varied Modes of Fault Slip and their Interactions – Slow Earthquakes, Creep to Mega Quakes, Session Chair: Abhijit Ghosh

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A continuous flow of images from the New Zealand earthquake reaches the earthquake geology community, and we’re probably all amazed by the coseismic offsets and other earthquake effects. However, the flow of papers on paleoseismology, tsunami, and active tectonics also does not stop and here is my digest for December. Enjoy reading!

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A special session on Toppled and Rotated Objects in Recent, Historic, and Prehistoric Earthquakes will be held during the upcoming 2017 Annual Meeting of the Seismological Society of America in Denver, Colorado from 18-20 April 2017.  Session Chairs will be Klaus-G. Hinzen and Rasool Anooshehpoor.

The main purpose of the session is to bring together researchers with diverse backgrounds (e.g., seismology, engineering, history, heritage conservation) who are interested in the behavior of objects, monuments, or simple structures during earthquakes and the stories which deformed, rotated or toppled objects can tell. The session will cover all aspects of toppled or rotated objects or simple structures which have suffered heavy deformation or damage during earthquakes. Topics will include: (1) observations, (2) documentation, (3) model building, (4) restoration, (5) mapping, and (6) correlation with geology.

Recent earthquake research has postulated correlation between the reaction of objects (monuments, columns, tombstones, etc.) and the seismic source in addition to local effects due to geological site conditions. As the laws of physics are time invariant, knowledge gained in reconnaissance surveys from well-studied instrumental earthquakes can reveal information about ground motions during historical and prehistorical earthquakes. Particular interest will be directed to man-made structures; however, due to similarities of the techniques used to study precariously balanced rocks and speleothems, contributions from these fields are also welcome.

The deadline for all proposed presentations, invited or otherwise, is 5 pm PST January 11, 2016.  All abstracts must be submitted by the deadline. Submitting abstracts through the online submission system only (There is a submission fee of $80 for regular attendees, $40 for students).

There are lots of other interesting sessions on earthquake geology, paleoseismology and related topics at the SSA meeting, make sure to check the full programme: http://meetings.seismosoc.org/special-sessions/

The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences – Geological Survey of Belgium, invites applicants for a research fellowship (postdoctoral level) in coastal paleoseismology/Quaternary environmental change. It will be a 1.5 year contract (January/February 2017- June 2018). Here’s the job advert: more

Dear friends and colleagues,

We are very sorry to announce that the 8th PATA Days in New Zealand can not take place in April 2017. The meeting has to be postponed to November 2017. The Kaikoura Earthquake has not only shaken up the entire country, but also disrupted the organisation of the PATA Days. All NZ earthquake geologists are currently in the field and they will have to deal with the EQ aftermath for the next couple of months. It is just technically impossible to organise the meeting in April under these circumstances. It’s also going to be really hard to get the NZ sponsorship that we counted on, as funds from places like the Earthquake Commission will be diverted to the Kaikoura EQ response & follow up research.

Of course, the field trip plans will also have to change completely. In November 2017 we will be able to see some of the most stunning effects of the Kaikoura Earthquake. In April, many roads will still be shut and many landowners will still be recovering and may not be amenable to curious scientists. By November next year, if we can incorporate some community outreach, then it will be much more appropriate to bring a field trip through the impacted area – pending open roads.

We are very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and we hope for your understanding. Currently the NZ organising team is working hard to fix new dates and locations. The official PATA website will be updated as soon as they’re back in office for a couple of hours.

On behalf of the organisers,

Christoph & the EGSHaz team

Annals of Geophysics has just published a special issue on the devastating Amatrice Earthquake series in Central Italy: Vol 59, Fast Track 5 (2016): The Amatrice seismic sequence: preliminary data and results.

The special issue, edited by Marco Anzidei and Silvia Pondrelli, contains lots of field reports, first assessments, and plenty of primary data. Plus, it’s all OPEN ACCESS! more

The M7.8 Kaikoura Earthquake in New Zealand produced one of the most complex ruptures ever observed, involving many different faults. Earthquake environmental effects include up to 10 m offset at the Kekerengu Fault, secondary ruptures, a tsunami, coseismic uplift, landslides and rockfalls, liquefaction, and maybe even earthquake lights. Lots of blogs and websites provide coverage on this earthquake, e.g. Geonet, the Landslide Blog, and The Trembling Earth. Our colleagues from the Research Group on Earthquake Geology in Greece worked on the landslides that happened during the earthquake. George Papathanassiou sent me the link to their Preliminary Map of Co-Seismic Landslides for the M 7.8 Kaikoura, New Zealand Earthquake. more