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The San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) was one of the most ambitious (and expensive) experiments in the history of active fault research. A borehole was drilled through the San Andreas Fault, 3.2 km deep and 1.8 km in horizontal direction. The borehole was equipped with a number of instruments in order to get data from right where the earthquakes occur, but most of the instruments failed already in 2008 due to the extreme conditions. While analyses of the drill core resulted in some great scientific achievements and enhanced our understanding of fault zones, almost no one seems to have much interest in the in-situ instruments. Or let’s say, no one can pay the necessary amount for re-equipping the hole, millions of dollars…  more

Vanja Kastelic and Michele M. C. Carafa (INGV, L’Aquila, Italy) recently published an article in the Bollettino di Geofisica Teorica e Applicata (an international journal of Earth sciences) entitled “Earthquake rates inferred from active faults and geodynamics: the case of the External Dinarides.” This article covers the area affected by the earthquake of Ml 4.7 (Mw 4.6) occurred on April 22, 2014.

The same authors also wrote a brief seismotectonic report dealing with such an earthquake. They share the report with us under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

A quick seismotectonic report for the 22 April 2014 (Mw=4.6) earthquake in SW Slovenia

Vanja Kastelic¹ and Michele M. C. Carafa¹

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If you can’t find funding for attending the 5th Pata-Days in Busan, Korea, there is still the chance to see and present some good research on earthquake geology in Germany. There will be a session Active Tectonics and Earthquake Geology at the GeoFrankfurt 2014 meeting in late September, so don’t miss the deadline:

Dear colleagues,

Within the frame of the conference GeoFrankfurt 2014 we are organizing a session on Active Tectonics and Earthquake Geology (B13). The conference is held at the Goethe Universität at Frankfurt, 21-24 September 2014.

Conveners: Ioannis Koukouvelas, Kurt Decker and Klaus Reicherter

Deadline for abstract submission: 25 April, 2014 more

During the month of March 2014, Sascha and I along with Tobi and Lauretta (BSc students from RWTH University) were in Greece for fieldwork. The fieldwork campaign started on the island of Crete; our institute at RWTH Aachen has a joint project with Mainz University to carry out paleotsunami investigations on the island. The western part of Crete was uplifted by approximately 9 m during the 21st July AD 365 earthquake and also hit by the associated tsunami. Due to the strong seismic and highly tsunamigenic activity of the nearby Hellenic Trench, it is suggested that numerous earlier tsunamis have also struck the island. more

On Monday, 31 March, our colleague and friend George Papathanassiou from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki will give an invited talk about Seismic Environmental Effects triggered by the January and February 2014 Cephalonia Earthquakes. The presentation will start 2:00 pm at RWTH Aachen University, Lochnerstr. 4-20, 52064 Aachen, room 217. Please download the flyer here, guests are welcome.

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An interdisciplinary meeting on climate change and seismic hazards during the Holocene in the Mediterranean will be held in Aix en Provence on July 7 and 8, 2014. The colloquium is organized by and will take place at CEREGE with 4 half days dedicated to specific areas of the Mediterranean region (SW-Mediterranean; Aegean-Turkey; Levant-Middle East; NW-NE Africa).

Contributions are welcome (poster or oral). Abstracts might be send to vidal@cerege.fr or benedetti@cerege.fr by April 14, 2014. Please find more info here (pdf). more

I came across several interesting papers on paleoseismology and related disciplines, most of them published recently. They deal with “classical” paleoseismology, with earthquake environmental effects like coseismic landslides and tsunamis, and also with geomorphological indicators for active faulting. Let me know if I missed some! more

The Friends of the Pleistocene went on a fieldtrip few days ago to study the 4D Architecture of an Oblique Rift Margin in Baja California, NW Mexico. The tour focussed on the paleoseismology of the Borrega and Laguna Salada Faults, especially on the 1982 and 2010 surface ruptures, and took place fom 27 February to 2 March, 2014. You can download the detailed field guide and the road log here. more

The report on the earthquake environmental effects of the two M6 earthquakes that rattled Cephalonia earlier this year is now available on iBooks library for Mac and IOS. Plus, the report comes with interactive content and videos. Best viewed on an iPad. more

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