The final program of the 3rd INQUA-IGCP 567 Workshop to be held at Morelia (Mexico) from 19 – 23 November 2012 is out now!

Download the pdf here: PROGRAM MORELIA 2012 INQUA WORKSHOP

Check Acambay1912.org for latest news!

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Several new papers were recently published in the fields of tsunami research, tectonics, and liquefaction. Also, a new book on active faults is available. Let’s have a look what can be added to your book shelf or to your Christmas wish list: more

Next year’s European Geosciences Union General Assembly will be held in Vienna, Austria, from 07 – 12 April. As always there will be hundreds of sessions and thousands of scientists, so I’ve put together some recommendations based on my own interest. However, there will be some things that you’ll like, too. more

Since the L’Aquila trial has caused a lot of attention and an outcry of the scientific community, topics like earthquake prediction and earthquake forecasting are widely discussed in blogs and media. Often enough, people that claim to be scientists pretend they could predict earthquakes. These pseudo-predictions are based either on measuring geophysical phenomena (like temperature, gas emissions, electromagnetic fields, light phenomena, sun-moon-earth tidal forces and interactions etc.), animal behaviour (toads, snakes, dogs etc.) or even crazier things (horoscopes, blasphemy, earthquake weapons…). None of these “methods” works. Earthquake prediction is currently not possible. more

Olivier Lacombe, Damien Delvaux, Giulio Viola and myself are inviting contributions for session TS9.5 “Advances in paleostress/strain reconstructions in tectonic studies : methods, applications, perspectives” at the 2013 EGU General assembly (Vienna, 07 – 12 April 2013).

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Rhett Howell’s WoGE #359 was located in Utah – the Death Hollow is a beautiful example of Navajo sandstone, bordered by two deep canyons and with a very interesting joint system. The site is situated on a huge monocline and part of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. So now it’s my turn again to host the next one. Here’s WoGE#360: more

The German research vessel R/V Polarstern is an ice-breaking mega laboratory and the heart of the German arctic and antarctic research. It is maintained by the AWI Bremerhaven (Alfred Wegener Institut for Polar and Marine Research). When I studied Geophysics at Leipzig University, I had to chance to visit this great ship during an excursion. Now the Polarstern is on her way for the Antarctic again, and this time the ship and the crew will spend the winter down far south for the very first time. Follow their campaign via the AWI blog or the GEO blog.

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In the wake of the verdict in the L’Aquila earthquake trial big words were not spared. Is this a “battle between science and politics”? Is the decision taken “more reminiscent of Dark Ages magical thinking than modern scientific understanding”? Is this trial “likened to persecution of Galileo”? In reaction to the verdict, a common tendency in the earth science and risk community seems to move towards a ‘withdrawal’ from our commitment to society. But is this the right thing to do?

This short-sighted verdict may indeed very well alienate society’s strongest ally when it comes to safeguarding society against potential dramatic consequences of earthquakes. But is society helped when scientists systematically overexaggerate the potential hazard to cover themselves against possible legal consequences? Such attitude would completely erode the credibility of science. And when a hazard becomes really serious, society will turn a deaf ear to the advice of the scientists. Society isn’t helped either when scientists withdraw in their academic ‘ivory towers’ and completely ignore their societal role. This would only give ‘charlatans’ carte blanche to preach doom.

Eventually, scientists do not have a choice! Scientists have to stick to their responsibility towards society. In risk communication they will have to be as clear and honest as possible, but without devaluing the nuance inherent to science. Scientists have to keep confronting authorities that run away from their responsibilities. And scientists will have to keep investing in an ‘informed citizenry’, to provide them all necessary tools to become aware and resilient with respect to the inevitable earthquake. But at the end, scientists should be able to say and write freely and unconditionally wherever their science leads them!

Quite near my personal working area or, in other words, some hundreds of kilometers away (which I didn’t experience as much of a distance in a huge country like China), the terrific and over 1500 km long Altyn Tagh Fault separates the northern Tibetan Plateau from the Tarim Basin and the Alashan and Alxa blocks. more

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS) has just published a new issue with lots of papers on marine and lake paleoseismology. So enough stuff for a good read on a cold and rainy autumn evening. The Special issue was edited by Daniela Pantosti, Eulàlia Gràcia, Geoffroy Lamarche, and Hans Nelson, and is an outcome of the European Science Foundation Research Conference: Submarine Paleoseismology – The Offshore Search of Large Holocene Earthquakes; Obergurgl, Austria, 11-16 September 2010. All articles are availabe for free download! Open access rules! more