I came across this great initiative after Richard Styron sent the announcement via the Geotectonics mailing list. He’s currently maintaining these projects. The idea is to compile all available data on active structures in the Himalaya using the GitHub infrastructure (basically a collaborative platform for programming) . Everyone can join and help compiling active faults in this region. The data is then available to everyone for free in different data formats. The same thing is currently happening for the Andes region, too! more

In Mai 2013, Jim McCalpin’s field course on Field Methods in Neotectonics and Paleoseismology took place in Crestone, CO. Our friend Jack Mason from the Institute of Neotectonics and Natural Hazards of RWTH Aachen University took part and sent me this amazing video. They encountered a bullsnake in the paleoseismological trench! Surprisingly, the snake decided to climb out of the trench via the vertical wall.  more

Last year the 3rd INQUA – IGCP567 Workshop on Paleoseismology, Archeoseismology and Active Tectonics took place in November in Morelia, Mexico. It was a great meeting and I have already posted a lot of photos here, here, here, here, and here. Now I have found the time to look at the video clips that I made. I’ve prepared a short movie with the highlights of the conference. You see, you must not miss the upcoming conference in Aachen… more

Shaky Ground is the new novel in Sharon Kae Reamers Schattenreich series. You’ve probably read Primary Fault, so you’re familiar with seismologist Caitlin and her adventures in Cologne. In this case, you will probably head towards your local book store now or you might be happy to find this Amazon link. If not, check out the story about science, fantasy, and the Cologne “Klüngel” and tell us how you liked it in the comment section! You might know the author not only from her novel, but also from her science... more

Dear friends and colleagues,

the registration for the PATA-Days is now online at pata-days.org. We used the acronym now to avoid the long title (4th International INQUA Meeting on Paleoseismology, Active Tectonics and Archeoseismology, 9-15 October, Aachen, Germany) and to do a favour to our Spanish friends…

Please find all information at the new website, including the abstract template.

The deadline for registration and abstract submission is 15 July.

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Imagine you live or work in a seismically active region. Imagine you work on paleoseismology, active tectonics, earthquake engineering and encounter an earthquake. And now imagine you stand in the field examining recent earthquake effects. You soon might think about an easy way to document your data to have it digitized right away! Now you can use your Android smartphone to map, categorize, describe and report Earthquake Environmental Effects (EEE). A new application has been released: Earthquake Geo Survey.

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Today we went for field work again – mapping active faults in Northern Attica, trying to find out about offsets and slip rates, and scouting sites for applying Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) later. We found some very beautiful fault scarps and measured a good number of strike and dip values. At two locations we also recorded topographic profiles across the scarps in order to get an idea about the vertical offset. Combined with the assumption that these scarps are post-glacial, we can estimate slip rates. more

I am currently in Greece for field work on faults in the vicinity of Athens. Sascha from RWTH Aachen University is doing his MSc. thesis on remote sensing, geophysical analyses, and mapping of some structures that we think could be active, and me and Ioannis are with him in the field for the first few days. Right on the first day we found some promising outcrops which we will map and check in detail during the next days. more

The latest issue (May 2013) of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA) is dedicated to the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami of March 2011. The studies published therein deal with the source models of the megaquake and rupture dynamics, the ground motions, the tsunami propagation, earthquake triggered landslides and induced seismicity, earthquake environmental effects, and one paper presents a new proposal for an extended Tsunami Intensity scale. more

Last night (22:29 UTC on 22 April) a M4.5 earthquake rattled NE Hungary. The event was shallow (~10 km) and the epicentre was only about 25 km south of the city of Eger, famous for its red wine (Egri bikavér). The area is south to the Inner Western Carpathian Mountains. Light damage has been reported from the epicentral area, the EMSC questionnaires document intensities of VI. more