Several interesting jobs are currently vacant for paleoseismologists and earthquake geology scientists, from PhD positions to professorships. more

The new issue of Seismological Research Letters has been published now and it contains a lot of articles for those liking old earthquakes. Some topics might sound familiar to you when you attended the PATA days conference as the authors presented parts of their work.

I have selected a few papers that are especially interesting to the paleoseismology community. They are about the use of Google StreetView for assessing macroseismic damage (Hinzen, 2013), archeoseismology in the Levant (Alfonsi et al. 2013), Earthquake rotated objects caused by the Emilia Romana earthquake – a fascinating EAE! (Cucci and Tertoulliani, 2013), a strong historical earthquake in Italy that likely did not happen at all (Camassi and Castelli, 2013) and new data on historical earthquakes in the Himalayan (Rajendran et al, 2013). Also, I added a paper on archaeoseismological investigations in northern Sicily that was published recently in Quaternary International (Bottari et al, 2013). Spend the rainy autumn evenings with a good read!

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On 15 October, 2013 a shallow Mw7.1 earthquake occured in Bohol, Philippines. The quake caused more than 200 fatalities and severe damages. Instrumental intensities of VIII – IX were recorded and the USGS estimates the maximum slip to be around 120 cm. Stéphane Baize from the French IRSN created a report not only on the seismological and tectonic background of the earthquake, but also on the earthquake environmental effects (EEEs) that were caused by the event. more

Dear colleagues and friends,

thank you very much for making the PATA Days 2013 such a great event! I hope you all had a safe trip back home or some more nice days with better weather. The abstract volume of the PATA Days is now available online. Currently, you can only download the entire volume, we will upload the single files into a sub-directory later.

Abstract volume Pata Days 2013: download more

Recent archaeoseismological studies have provided us with spectacular examples of skeletons as earthquake archaeological effects. Cases include the Neolithic skeletons of Tell es-Sultan, ancient Jericho (one of them beheaded by a fracture crossing the site!) published by Alfonsi et al. in SRL (2012) and the skeletons smashed by building collapse reported by Berberian et al. in JAS (2012).

To this list should now be added the case of Lajia (Guanting Basin, central China), where a team of Chinese researchers uncovered a series of skeletons buried under a thick layer of clay interpreted as the result of an enormous, earthquake-related mudflow c. 3950 cal BP. more

A fascinating series of relatively shallow minor earthquakes is currently occuring in Romania in the Galaţi area. Around 40 events occured during the last few days, most of them with magnitudes of ~3. Now a mb5.4 earthquake happened in more than 100 km depth. The quake was felt in wide parts of Romania and Bulgaria. Due to its depth no damages are expected. First moment tensor solutions do not give a clear picture yet, but it seems like NE-SW trending thrust event could have happened at the SE bend of the Carpatian Mountains.  more

After the strong earthquake in Pakistan a good part of the media coverage was about the fascinating story of the new island that emerged off Gwadar. While this was really amazing I think now it’s time to think about the consequences of the quake itself. We have seen a shallow M7.7 event that produced severe shaking across a large area. Peak ground acceleration exceeded 1 g in the 0.3 s period and was still intense in longer periods. 515 people have reportedly been killed and more than 100,000 are homeless. more

On 24 September a shallow M7.7 earthquake rattled Pakistan. At least 300 people died and thousands of houses, most of them adobe, collapsed in Balochistan Province. The quake was felt as far away as Muscat (Oman) and New Delhi (India). Epicentral intensities reached up to IX. The earthquake appeared to be a strike slip event. Soon the media reported on an amazing effect of the quake – in roughly 400 km distance a new island appeared few hundred meters off Gwadar. more

A new article on archaeoseismology appeared yesterday in Geoarchaeology’s Early View section. In this paper, Karabacak and colleagues present archaeoseismological evidence in the Roman stadium of ancient Kibyra (southwest Turkey). Earthquake archaeological damage includes surface faulting, systematically collapsed columns, dilated and collapsed walls, as well as rotated and displaced blocks. Their study suggests that a previously unknown seismic event (Io = VIII-IX) may have struck this region of Turkey around the 10-11 th century AD. more

Dear friends and colleagues,

it’s only few days to go until the PATA Days conference will start with the icebreaker party at the Kuckucksnest in Aachen! We have more than 100 registered participants and we are looking forward an exciting meeting. If you attend the first two days 9-10 October, don’t forget to book a hotel in Aachen on your own, it’s time now.

You don’t have a hotel yet? Check out this pdf: Hotels and Travel.

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