I’ve spent several weeks in Eastern Kazakhstan this summer for paleoseismological field work. During the first part of this trip we looked at some thrust and strike-slip faults in the Ili Basin and the Saty area. The second part was almost entirely devoted to study the Dzhungarian Fault. I’ll blog about this second part later. Eleanor, David, Austin and me were the UK representatives in our team. We were so lucky to have Kanatbek from Kyrgyzstan and Aydin from Kazakhstan with us. They did not only lead us to all the interesting places and helped us to understand the geology and the tectonics, but they also did a fanatastic job organizing the field trip and dealing with the local surprises, which as you know happen in basically every field trip.
Our first study site was located at the northern boundary of the Ili Basin, where we did some work last year already. more
Several new studies have been published recently on old earthquakes and their geological footprint – time to list them and to recommend reading. Additionally, today’s paper digest also lists several articles which are not about paleoseismology, but geoethics. These papers were published in a special volume of GSL. They cover subjects that many paleoseismologists will have dealt with in the past or are likely to deal with in the future – seismic risk perception, science communication, public outreach, and communicating uncertainties. One paper is dedicated to the L’Aquila trial. I find it very telling that this issue is not open access. Obviously, strengthening “public trust in geosciences” has still a long way to go…
Here are the latest papers:
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The following very interesting mail reached us by Abdelkrim Aoudia from the ICTP in Trieste (Italy):
Three Postdoctoral positions in paleoseismology and seismology
are available at the Earth System Physics (ESP) section of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). The two first positions (A and B) are funded by the GENERALI Group– a major player in the global insurance industry, in the framework of a research project integrating earthquake fault studies and simulations of the ground-motion.
The third position (C) is funded in the framework of an international collaborative effort following the recent Nepal Gorkha 2015 earthquake. The research topic involves a study of the structure, dynamics and seismicity of Nepal Himalaya.
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Greece is a Disneyland for neotectonics and active faulting research. Some of the most important findings in earthquake science have been achieved in Greece, its historical catalogue is one of the longest on Earth, and paleoseismology, archaeoseismology & tsunami studies are abundant. These are many good reasons to consider registration for the 14th Int’l Conference of the Geological Society of Greece (Thessaloniki, May 25-27, 2016), especially since the programme is full of earthquake science stuff. The deadline for submitting papers is September 30.
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Summer time is publishing time! Lots of new papers are out, today we have
- archaeoseismology & rotated objects;
- paleoseismology in Korea, China, & Portugal;
- trench photomosaicking and PBRs;
- lots of tectonic geomorphology (i.e., Ximena’s paper on the Carboneras fault where I did my diploma thesis in 2004…);
- news from the Balochistan earthquake; and
- tsunamis.
Enjoy reading and tell us if something is missing!
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At the XIX INQUA congress in Japan I had the chance to see the surface ruptures of the 1891 Nobi earthquake during the mid-congress excursion M-2. This quake caused huge damage, but more interestingly for me, it produced amazing surface ruptures which are preserved even more than a hundred years after the event. The M7.5-M8 quake occurred in a mountainous area and was mainly strike-slip (more than 8 m!), but significant vertical uplift was found at step-overs. In 1991, the wonderful Neodani Fault Museum opened to the public, its main attraction being a paleoseismological trench exhibiting more than 5 m of vertical offset! Simply astonishing. Thanks to Atsumasa Okada, Heitaro Kaneda and Keitaro for this great excursion! more
Lots of paleoseismology and tsunami studies are currently being published… Here’s my update on the latest papers, including: Surface ruptures, seismic swarms, tsunamites, Asian tectonics, slip rates and archaeoseismology. Plus: A very interesting study on the 1911 Chon-Kemin M8.0 earthquake in the Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan border region, the source process reconstruced from analogue seismograms. Thanks to Ramon Arrowsmith for pointing me to this one. Enjoy!
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A few weeks ago I spent ten days of field work in the Suusamyr Valley in Kyrgyzstan. In the framework of the EwF Project and COMET a team from Oxford (Eleanor Ainscoe, Austin Elliott, Richard Walker) and Kyrgyzstan (Kanatbek Abdrakhmatov, Azat Moldobaev) re-visited the epicentral area of the 1992 MS7.3 Suusamyr earthquake. This thrust earthquake is quite special for it produced intense and widespread secondary earthquake environmental effects (landslides, rockfalls, secondary ruptures, mud eruptions, etc.), but remarkably short primary surface ruptures only. Actually, surface ruptures of several metres height were found near the Suusamyr river, but limited to few hundreds of metres in length. Some 25 km to the west, another set of surface ruptures appeared, which were only about 1 m in height and less than 3 km long. Here are some impressions from our field work. more
Isn’t it too hot to be inside and reading? For the night here are some short news on the top 100 paper of all time, the Landers earthquake and Landsat data. Today is Friday and here are your links!
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The Megablock Complex: An example from the East African Rift
Recognizing and interpreting seismite horizons (soft-sediment deformation generated by earthquakes) preserved in the sedimentary record is an underappreciated approach for paleoseismic analysis. The addition of sedimentological studies to a toolkit that includes other well-established methods, such as instrumental seismic monitoring and fault trenching, can provide a less expensive and more practical option for earthquake hazard prediction and preparation in certain areas. For example, this may be a good option in less developed regions and in areas where fault trenching may not be possible. Moreover, there is a lot that we can learn rheologically from the study of seismites that could be invaluable for modeling the behavior of the surface/near-surface during seismic activity. Similarly, investigating Quaternary strata in areas that may be prone to seismicity, which may or may not have a recorded history of major earthquakes, can illuminate important information about earthquake recurrence patterns and intervals, in much the same way as fault trenching. more
