Dear friends,
we announce here that the 3rd INQUA-IGCP 567 international workshop will take place in Morelia, Mexico in November 2012. After Baelo Claudia 2009 in Spain and Corinth 2011 we move for the first time across plate boundaries into the new world. On 19th November 1912 at 07:18 h took place the Acambay Earthquake (Mexico), close to Mexico DF. This is the main reason to celebrate the workshop in Mexico, the commemoration of 100 years since this historical event. The Opening ceremony of the workshop will be held at the City of Acambay with the support of the local authorities.
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Cyprus explosion caused an M3.0 earthquake: On 11 July, a catastrophe took place in southern Cyprus. 2,000 tons of amunition confiscated from an Iranian ship on its way to Syria exploded. 13 people were killed and the military base and a neighbouring power plant were destroyed. Seismographs have registered the shock as an earthquake with magnitude ML3.0.
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This week’s centerfault is a very prominent one that you will know for sure – the Dead Sea Fault. The sinistral strike-slip fault marks the boundary between the Arabian plate and the Sinai. The entire system is more than 600 km long and has accommodated ~107 km of slip since Miocene. Magnitude 7 is no problem for this structure and the recurrence intervalls are short. more
The most exciting news this week surely were the media reports that a tsunami destroyed ancient Olympia in Greece, hundreds of years ago. Andreas Vött from Mainz University published a press release at the end of June about his research. Unfortunately, I have only found media coverage in German. The results will be presented at the Corinth2011 conference (registration still open)! more
The preliminary report on the Lorca Mw5.1 earthquake from 11 May 2011 is now also available in English! The quake caused a lot of damages to building despite the relatively low magnitude. One building collapsed and nine people died. The report summarized the geological background, environmental earthquake effects and damaged infrastructure. more
This day’s Centerfault is one of the longest and best investigated faults in Spain, the sinistral Carboneras Fault Zone (CFZ) in Andalusia (36.85°N, 2.25°W). In the north, the CFZ is bounded by the Palomares fault, its southern tip reaches the Gulf of Almería. The NE-SW striking fault zone stretches over 50 km onshore and additional 100 km offshore (Gràcia et al., 2006) and is, therefore, capable of earthquakes with magnitudes > 7. It is one of the three major strike-slip faults in the Betics (Bell et al., 1997). more
Some good articles came up last week, and two interesting things happened in northwestern Europe. A small earthquake (M2.7-M3.4) hit northern Netherlands in the Groningen area and people claimed light house damages despite the low magnitude. The event was caused by natural gas production. The gas company, Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), even has an online-formular for that! more
Yesterday, British media reported on a small tsunami that hit southwestern England at 10.15 BST. Wave heights reached around 30 cm in some bays but didn’t cause damages, BBC reports. Scientists from Plymouth University claimed an offshore landslide responsible for the rare phenomenon. The waves were seen in Cornawall, Devon and Hampshire. more
Felix‘ WoGE #293 led us to a giant dune field in northern Namibia, adding one more location to my where-I-need-to-go-list. The dunes stretch over hundreds of kilometers across southern Africa, which made it not too easy to find the actual spot. Luckily, I came across Heike’s thesis. Felix asked me to show some evidence for tsunamis in the Mediterranean in the next round, so find out whether I did or not. Should be rather easy. more
Dear friends and colleagues,
I am more than happy to announce that on last Monday (June 20, 2011) Christoph obtained his doctoral degree from the RWTH Aachen University in Geosciences. Most of you know him as very active person in this forum, as a thoughtful scientist and as a friend. Christoph wrote his thesis on “The Baelo Claudia earthquake problem” by means of geological, geophysical, archaeoseismological and palaeoseismological investigations.
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