Update: Read the article of The Times of Oman here!
Today at 11:52:50 UTC a magnitude 6.3 earthquake occurred in SW Iran close to the shore in a depth of 10 km. The event was widely felt in Iran and across the NE Arabian Peninsula. Moment tensor solution reveal a thrust mechanism, which is in perfect concordance with the historic seismicity pattern. The event was caused by the convergence of the Arabian and Eurasian plates, that not only built up the impressive Zagros Mountains, but also lead to the formation of the Makran Subduction Zone. Relative plate motions there are as fast as 20 mm/yr in the central part. more
I am currently at GUtech in Oman, a sister university of RWTH Aachen University, for teaching Geophysics and I spend most of the free time in the field with my colleague Gösta Hoffmann. On Friday we went to the Batinah area NW of Mascat to look for active faults. The Batinah is a plain of most likely Quaternary age, made up from the sediments delivered from the huge mountains in the south. Folded Tertiary limestones are cropping out close to the mountain range. Some of them are covered by Quaternary gravels, others aren’t. more
Dear friends and colleagues,
in 2013 we will organize the 4th International INQUA Meeting on Paleoseismology, Active Tectonics and Archeoseismology in Western Germany. The online registration will open soon at paleoseismicity.org and additional information will follow during the next days.
Date: 9-14 October 2013
Location: Aachen, Germany
more
BSSA’s most recent issue is full of paleoseismological work. The April 2013 issue contains a number of papers dealing with old earthquakes in Turkey, California, Argentina, and Jamaica. Also, there’s info on earthquake catalogues in South America and China. A study on seismic sources in the Lower Rhine Embayment, (W Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands) is especially interesting for me, because it’s right in my backyard. Plus, there are some basic studies on the reliability of paleoseismological investigation and problems in earthquake geology. more
Did you think there was no earthquake hazard in Central Europe? Don’t worry unless you live in Italy, Greece, or Turkey? Wrong! There’s significant hazard not only in W Germany, S Spain and on the Balkan Peninsula – take into account mining induced events, too…
An earthquake of magnitude 4.6 occurred in SW Poland last night in very shallow depth. 19 copper miners were trapped inside the mine for hours after a tunnel collapsed and communication was cut. All miners were rescued, one suffered minor injuries.
The area is known as the Lubin mining area (coal and copper) and one of the hot spots in Central Europe’s seismicity. more
On Monday morning, a M4.7 strike-slip earthquake rocked the Anza area, California. The quake occurred at the San Jacinto Fault Zone and was widely felt. As there are not many people who know the San Jacinto better than Tom Rockwell, I recommend to read this short interview. The LA Times has more info on the quake. more
Jim McCalpin will teach his 13th Field Course in Neotectonics and Paleoseismology from May 22-31, 2013 in Crestone, Colorado, USA. This is a “9-day summer Field Course, offered by the Crestone Science Center, which teaches the latest field techniques, but also contains evening lectures covering the entire field of Paleoseismology.” more
The following mail reached us today:
“A new International Graduate Summer Course in Iceland 2013:
EARTHQUAKE ENGINEERING AND ENGINEERING SEISMOLOGY
Iceland, 30 May – 21 June 2013
www.earthquake.is
more
Today’s post of the Landslide Blog about a rockfall caused by a volcanic earthquake reminds me about something that’s in my mind for years already. Could we use dust deposits as a paleoseismological archive? Dust clouds of all sizes, ranging from tiny to huge, can be associated with seismic shaking, especially in arid and mountainous regions. Here I have collected a few videos I found on YouTube. When large amounts of dust settle they should form a distinctive layer recognizable in the sedimentary record, comparable to volcanic ash deposits. Of course they will be harder to be identified, since the material is the local one. I guess this could be done, similar to turbidites in marine paleoseismology. There are papers that describe changes in the aerosol content in the atmosphere after earthquakes, so why not look for them on earth? more
It’s been a while since the last Friday links, so today’s list is rather long. Of course the Russian meteoroid-meteor-meteorite (yes, in this order!) was an absolutely amazing, though destructive phenomenon. The air blast was registered equivalent to an earthquake of magnitude 2.7. Read Livescience’s article here and read this text to get to know about meteors and seismograms in general. more
