It’s only a few days until the 5th PATA Days will start in Busan, Korea. This International INQUA Meeting on Paleoseismology, Active Tectonics and Archeoseismology is the first one to be held in Asia, and I am really excited. The organizers have put together an amazing program. After the icebreaker party on Sunday in the New Malden Pub we will go for a pre-meeting field trip on 22 September. Heading to Korea’s east coast, we will have a look at Quaternary terraces and nuclear power plant sites. The main part of the meeting (23rd and 24th) is dedicated to more than 25 talks on Earthquake Geology, Paleoseismology, Archeoseismology, Active Tectonics, and Seismic Hazard, flanked by poster sessions. Finally, the post-meeting field trip will lead us to active faults in SE Korea and archeoseismological sites. more

In 2013 the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) –www.globalquakemodel.org – published seven Requests for Proposal covering topics related to the compilation of basic datasets as well as the creation and calculation of an updated probabilistic seismic hazard input model for South America. This initiative is now named the South America Risk Assessment Project (SARA).

Five consortia of South American researchers responded to this request and submitted proposals for the Hazard Component of SARA. These proposals has been recently endorsed by GEM and will constitute different datasets or topic layers for SARA. They include databases on historical and instrumental seismicity, hazardous faults (Quaternary deformation), tectonic geodesy and ground motions. more

Several meetings on tsunamis will be held during the next months, make sure not to miss them. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. This event was not only one of the most deadly natural disasters that ever happened, but it also was a kind of wake-up call for tsunami science. It’s safe to say that it had an enormous impact on research funding and it is responsible for a huge increase in scientific tsunami literature. The meetings will be a good occasion to share your research. more

On 24 September, 2013, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake occurred in Balochistan, Pakistan. The quake caused intense ground motions and had dramatic consequences – hundreds of people died, and more than 100,000 lost their homes. A secondary effect which caught much attention in the international media was the birth of an island off the Pakistani coast – Zalzala Jazeera or Earthquake Island. Another effect which went almost completely unnoticed was a small tsunami in the Arabian Sea. The tsunami reached wave heights of around 1 m at the Omani coast. In a paper which was recently published in Geology, my colleagues and me document the tsunami effects in Oman. We conclude on a submarine slide off Pakistan as the likely trigger mechanism.

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A good number of interesting papers has been published during the last months, related to active tectonics, paleoseismology and tsunami research. Study sites include Oman, Italy, New Zealand, California, Cascadia, Scotia Sea, and Central Asia. Enjoy reading and tell me, if you miss some publications here!

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During the last three weeks I have been to Kazakhstan for paleoseismological field work and to summarize this journey: It was amazing! The trip was part of the Earthquakes without Frontiers project (EwF). This research project is funded by NERC and ESRC and aims on increasing the knowledge on earthquake hazards in Central Asia. The field work was lead by Richard Walker and scientists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the UK had a close look at fault scarps in the easternmost parts of the country. Our aim was to determine the slip rates of some of the longest and most prominent thrust and strike-slip faults in the area. more

This summer and fall will be trenching time, our Belgian, Dutch and Austrian colleagues are opening paleoseismological trenches. The DEM/image of the last post by Christoph shows already some morphological relevant faults in the Aachen area (recognized by the rectangular open-pit lignite mines) that are striking NW-SE. more

Intraplate earthquakes are those that occur far away from plate boundaries in what is often also referred to as slowly deforming regions or stable continental regions (SCR). Seismicity there is comparably low and earthquake recurrence intervals can easily exceed thousands of years for individual faults. However, intraplate quakes do account for a significant number of earthquake fatalities and killed more people than those that happened at plate boundaries during the last 100 years (England & Jackson , 2011). A new book has been published a few days ago, dedicated to summarizing our knowledge of these seismic events.  more

It’s not been long since I’ve listed some recent paleoseismology papers, but it seems like it’s publishing season. So here is more stuff to read during the holidays… more

Dear friends of paleoseismicity.org,

we have relaunched our website a few days ago and I am very, very happy! Martin did a great job and basically built everything from scratch. The old website had grown over the years and became more and more complicated as we added new features every now and then. So we decided it’s time for something new and – voilà. more