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.

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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

In the framework of IGCP567, Dr. Andrey Korjenkov is convening a special IGCP567 session and field trip on Earthquake Archaeology and Palaeoseismology in Central Asia.
All information on the international symposium can be found in the first circular (and registration form).
If you are interested to contribute to this session and/or participate to the field trip, please contact Dr. Korjenkov (akorjen@mail.kg) as soon as possible. The final deadline is 15 March.
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I have won my first WoGE on Friday, Florian had a great image of the Okavango delta in Botswana. So I have the great pleasure to host the actual quiz.  The rules are simple: Find out the position of the image placed below (provide coordinates) and give a short description of the geological features in the comments. The first to find out has the honor to host the next quiz on his (geo-) blog. I do not invoke the “Schott rule” since I chose to show only a small detail of the subject of interest. This means: Let the games begin! more

The Christchurch earthquake was the main topic of the Geoblogosphere this week. A great analysis on the effects was provided by Dave Petley in his Landslide Blog. Highly Allochthonous reasoned on seismic lensing, Ontario Geofish posted a lot on building security, and countless news sites came up with photos and reports. Frank Taylor, who hosted the GoogleEarthBlog before he left for a sailing trip around the world, was in Christchurch next to the Cathedral when the quake happened. On his Tahina Expedition website he reports on his experiences.

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A M6.3 earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand on 22 February (21 Feb in UTC), leaving at least 75 people dead and hundreds injured or missing. Hundreds of houses were destroyed, including the Christchurch Cathedral, and damages will probably sum up to some billion dollars. On 4 September 2010 (3 Sept in UTC), a M7.0 event struck Christchurch, but then no one was killed. So: what’s the difference between the two events?

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