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
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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
Several paleoseismology papers have been published in the latest issue of BSSA (103-1). There’s interesting new data on faults in New Zealand, California, and several regions in China, Taiwan and India. For sure I will read the following papers: more
Dear colleagues,
please consider submitting abstracts to the following session to be held at the IAEG XII Congress in Torino, 15-19 September 2014:
- Off-fault coseismic surface effects and their impact in urban areas
- Surface fault-rupture hazard in urban areas
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In the last twelve hours, a series of major earthquakes struck the Santa Cruz Islands. Beginning with the activation of a thrust fault with a M8.0 (M7.9) earthquake, almost fifty aftershocks hit the region. A regional tsunami warning was released short six minutes after the first quake at 1:12 UTC and has now been cancelled.
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