Some weeks ago we advertised the NSF-sponsored workshop on Future Directions in Tectonics. Yesterday, Kevin Mahan announced that the workshop will be postponed. Read the message he circulated: more

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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Here are my latest updates on papers and books that deal with paleoseismology, active tectonics, tsunamis and similar topics. There is a good portion of lake/turbidite paleoseismology with some beautiful seismites. We also have some more general tectonics/review papers, and an interesting attempt to establish a global fault database. Plus, there is an intense ongoing discussion about Kashmir and news from Napa. Enjoy!

You feel there’s something missing? Drop me a mail!

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Today is Friday and here are your links on human-caused earthquakes, induced aseismic slip, typesetting costs, flash flood video footage, and more!

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It’s Friday – but instead of the Friday links I have the story of a giant post earthquake debris flow in the Wenchuan area for you. As I already announced in my last post about the field trip to the Wenchuan earthquake epicenter in frame of the International Symposium on Mega-Earthquake Induced Geo-disasters and Long Term Effects in Chengdu, China, I still wanted to blog about the Qipan gully debris flow that we also visited during the field trip. After giving you some background information I will take you on the hike with us. We will first see massive destruction in the residential area and then have a look at the debris flow deposits and some mitigation structures while climbing up the gully. Come on, let’s go! more

There are articles to read, videos to watch and positions to be found: paleoseismology of Chilean turbidites, lake sediments investigated near the North Anatolian Fault, indoor footage of the Gorkha Earthquake and a discussion on Elsevier’s new sharing policies. Today is Friday and here are your links!

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In my last post I blogged about the International Symposium on Mega Earthquake Induced Geo-disasters and Long Term Effects in Chengdu, China, and now I want to report about one of the field trips that I participated after the symposium. While we spent the morning and early afternoon at the Qipan gully to look at a giant debris flow that occurred five years after the earthquake, in the afternoon we had the chance to visit the memorial site of the 2008 Mw 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake, which is basically the collapsed building of a middle school close to the epicenter that was left as it was after the earthquake. I want to report about this site first because it is more about the earthquake itself. In my next post I will report about the Qipan gully debris flow. more

Earthquake Environmental Effects (EEE) have proven to be valuable for describing past earthquakes and their geological imprints. The ESI2007 is a relatively new intensity scale dedicated to such effects, but also integrating traditional macroseismic scales. Examples of ESI2007 intensities assigned to large earthquakes are being collected in the EEE web catalogue hosted by the ISPRA and ESI2007-related work is conducted in the framework of INQUA.

Another milestone now has been achieved with the ISPRA volume “Earthquake Environmental Effect for seismic hazard assessment: the ESI intensity scale and the EEE Catalogue”. This book is now available online here. It contains updates on the ESI2007, examples of applications, documentation of the EEE Android App, a huge reference list and, most importantly, the ESI2007 description in ten languages: more

Here are some links I collected on today’s Kent Earthquake, the impossible task of earthquake prediction and some videos on Structure From Motion and Pacific tsunami propagation. Today is Friday and here are your links!

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From May 8 – 13, 2015 the 4th International Symposium on Mega Earthquake Induced Geo-disasters and Long Term Effects was held in Chengdu, China, at the 7th anniversary of the M_w 7.9 Wenchuan earthquake that occurred on May 12, 2008. Since Chengdu was basically on my way back from the Fucino 2015 PATA Days in Italy to my working place in Beijing, I was in the lucky situation to be able to participate the symposium and drive away the post-PATA-blues with exciting talks, discussions and field trips that obtained a new dimension of relevance in face of the April 25 Nepal earthquake. I thought this meeting might be interesting for the paleoseismicity community and as Christoph told me, the current example of the Nepal quake that apparently didn’t produce any surface rupture shows again the importance of earthquake environmental effects (EEEs) for paleoseismologists. So I decided to put together a little report about the symposium and in a coming post I also want to share a report and some pictures from the post-symposium field trips. more