Some days ago, a great new paper was published on the investigation of soft-sediment deformation in paleoseismology: “Alsop & Marco 2011: Soft-Sediment deformation within seismogenic slumps of the Dead Sea Basin. Journal of Structural Geology 33 (2011) 433-457.” The authors investigated the most beautiful seismites I’ve ever seen and generated different scenarios for their interpretation with respect to paleoseismic events. more

A strong aftershock has rocked Japan on 11 April. USGS reported a magnitude of 6.7, while EMSC estimated M6.6. A tsunami warning has been released by the Japan Meteorological Agency for the eastern coast of Japan’s Honshu Island. UPDATE 13:06 MEST: The Tsunami warning has been cancelled. more

Now the EGU2011 in Vienna is over. Thousands of scientists have attended the meeting and more than 13,000 abstratcs were presented. Approx. 20,000 portions of Gulasz and 100,000 Wiener Schnitzels were served, hektoliters of wine and beer went down the throats of thirsty scientists. Some people say the EGU contributes with 10% to the income of Vienna’s bartenders. Several contributions dealt with paleoseismology, paleoseismicity, archeoseismology and paleotsunamis especially on Monday and Friday. more

The World Geological Council (WGC) decided to “sell” earthquakes for charity. Similar to the names of low-pressure areas and high-pressure areas that you can buy from the meteorological agencies, everyone can now apply for buying the name of an earthquake as a gift to friends or relatives. The decision on the application is made by a control board of the WGC, the procedure will be managed by the USGS. The website BUY-AN-EARTHQUAKE.com will go online during the next weeks. All proceeds from this will be given for charity to help earthquake victims. Since the earthquake magnitude scale is logarithmic, rates will increase with increasing magnitude as well.

more

The Japan earthquake and tsunami have hit Japan harder than we could have imagined. Thousands are still missing, the death toll climbs and climbs, a nuclear disaster might happen or already happened, depending on who you ask, and the economical damages are incredibly high. Not only Japan was affected, but other countries as well feel the effects. Germany, for example, shut down seven of it’s oldest nuclear power plants and there’s a big debate on earthquakes and risks. The Geoblogosphere is still discussing lessons, estimations and consequences, and so are the official media. Here are some reports and opinions you should not miss. more

While the Japan earthquake has dominated the media obviously, some other news came up in geoscience. A researcher team lead by Ludovic Ferrierè who works at the Natural History Museum in Vienna claims to have proven the first impact crater in central Africa. The Luizi structure in the Democratic Republic of Congo was described in 1919 by a German study, but has not been confirmed as an impact crater for decades. Ferrierè and his team now found shatter cones and shocked quartzes, strongly pointing to an impact.  The crater has a diameter of 17 km and a 350 m high rim, which led the scientists to assume a meteor of 1 km diameter and a velocity of ~20,000 m/s. more

The Seismological Society of America has re-opened abstract submission for a special session on the Christchurch and Japan earthquakes during the Memphis conference. Deadline for new abstracts on this topic is 25 March.

The Seismological Society of America‘s annual meeting 2011 will take place in Memphis, Tennessee from 13 – 15 April.  A special focus is set on the New Madrid earthquakes, so paleoseismologists will definitely hear some interesting sessions there. Post meeting excursions are scheduled 16 April.  For more information visit the official website.

more

Thanks to Alessandro I came across this incredible video of liquefaction occuring in the Tokyo Central Park during the M9.0 Japan earthquake. We can see a lot of very interesting features. First, cracks are opening, perfectly visible on the paved road and the cobble. Then we see the differential moving along those cracks, they are widening and narrowing and there’s vertical movement as well. Soon, the first ruptures appear in the meadows, despite the soft sediment there. more

The Japan M9.0 earthquake and the following tsunami are well documented by videos, photographs, sea-level measurements, seismograms etc. But how do we recognize such huge events if they happened some thousands of years ago? If there’s no historical report we would use earthquake environmental effects (EEE) for characterizing the earthquake and paleoseismicity. Let’s look what would be left from a 5000 year old earthquake and tsunami. more

An earthquake with a magnitude of Mw9.0 has occured 130 km east of Honshu, Japan in a depth of ~25 km. This had been the fourth or fifth strongest earthquake to be recorded by instrumental seismology. The quake caused significant destruction to the Honshu Island and triggered a tsunami that  destroyed a number of harbours. In some places (Sendai), tsunami heights were reported to exceed 10 m. A tsunami warning has been released for wide parts of the Pacific, but in Hawaii only 1 m was observed, therefore the warnings for the US West Coast have been lowered. more