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The Earthquake Geosurvey App by George Papathanassiou and Vasilis Kopsachilis has reached 500 downloads – congratulations! The App allows mapping earthquake environmental effects in post-earthquake surveys and is currently available for Android. An iOS version will come soon. Find more information about the app here at the official homepage or visit Google Play for download. more

A team of geologists mapped the earthquake environmental effects (EEEs) of the two M6+ events that occurred at the Greek Island of Cephalonia on 26 January and 3 February, 2014. G. Papathanassiou, A. Ganas, S. Valkaniotis, M. Papanikolaou and S. Pavlides participated in these field campaigns. George Papathanassiou sent me the preliminary report today. The team found widespread evidence for “liquefaction, road-fill failures, rock falls, small landslides and stonewall failures“. more

On 27 March, 1964, an earthquake of magnitude 9.2 occurred offshore Alaska (Plafker, 1965) and caused a Pacific-wide tsunami. This quake was the second most powerful that was ever recorded and is also referred to as the Great Alaska Earthquake. The USGS has now released a report on a comparable tsunami scenario. The SAFRR (Science Application for Risk Reduction) Tsunami Scenario deals with a tsunami caused by a major quake off Alaska and investigates the possible impact at the coast of California.  more

The latest issue of Annals of Geophysics is devoted to Earthquake geology: science, society and critical facilities. Vol 56 (6) is a Special Volume, and I am proud to say it’s our volume! Finally, 14 papers are included in this issue, most of them authored by early career researchers (ECRs). The papers are based on work presented at the 2nd INQUA meeting on Active Tectonics, Earthquake Geology, Archaeology and Engineering in Corinth, Greece, 2011. The issue was edited by Christoph Grützner, Salvatore Barba, Ioannis Papanikolaou and Raul Pérez-López and all papers are open access! more

On 26 January and 3 February, two strong and shallow earthquakes of magnitude 6+ occured at the island of Kefalonia/Cephalonia in Western Greece. The events caused intense damage to buildings and infrastructure. A team of EERI (Earthquake Engineering Research Institute) scientists went to the island to map these kind of damages. Earthquake Environmental Effects (EEE) like rockfalls, landslides, and lateral spreading were also caused by the events. George Papathanassiou and his colleagues mapped these features and sent me the following photos from Lixouri. more

Two earthquakes of magnitude M6+ occured near the island of Kefalonia in Western Greece on 26 January and 3 February, 2014. Both were shallow strike slip events that are associated with the Kefalonia transform fault and caused not only damages to buildings and infrastructure, but also significant earthquake environmental effects (EEEs). Here I compile some photo and video sources from rockfalls and other features. more

After the 1^st Iberfault meeting in 2010, the 2^nd meeting will take place in Lorca, Spain from 22-24 October, 2014. Any research on active tectonics and paleoseismology in Iberia is welcome, a special focus will be set on the QUAFI database. The conference will be organized by José Martinez Díaz (UCM), Eulàlia Masana (UB) and Miguel A. Rodríguez (IGME). Lorca became famous in 2011 when a shallow M_W5.1 earthquake killed 9 people and caused severe damages in the city (there is an ongoing discussion whether or not groundwater lowering for irrigation during the last decades has caused, triggered, or influenced the quake).

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A special issue on “Geology and Archaeology of Earthquakes” has currently been published in Cuaternario y Geomorfología (Quaternary and Geomoprhology, ISSN: 0214-1744), which is the official journal of the Spanish Quaternary Union (AEQUA) and the Spanish Geomorphological Society (SEG): Vol 27, No 3-4 (2013) – Geología y Arqueología de Terremotos. The issue includes an introduction and ten research papers on earthquake geology and archaeoseismology of the Iberian Peninsula. Most papers are in English, few in Spanish. more

The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Geological Survey of Belgium, Brussels, invites applicants for a 4-year research fellow (postdoctoral level) in coastal paleoseismology/Quaternary environmental change. Starting date: 1 June 2014.

The successful candidate will work in the framework of a 4-year research project, funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office: ‘QuakeRecNankai’ – Paleo-tsunami and earthquake records of ruptures along the Nankai Trough, offshore South-Central Japan.

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An interesting paper has been published in Nature Geoscience by Murphy et al.: Limit of strain partitioning in the Himalaya marked by large earthquakes in western Nepal. It doesn’t happen too often that paleoseismological papers are published in this journal and it’s also not too often that authors publish such beautiful photos. The authors identified a more than 60 km long rupture in W Nepal with 10 m of surface offset (strike-slip with a normal component). 14C dating points to seismic activity between AD 1165 and 1400. That’s pretty surprising for many reasons: more