Today is GeoScience Day (Geotag) at RWTH Aachen University! Organized by the Chair of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, this event will start at 9:30 am in the Couvenhalle, Aachen. Geoscience-related talks and a poster exhibition will only be some parts of the very interesting program. The Geo summer party will be started after the “Geotag” at 6:00 pm at the parking lot of the Geoscience Institute at Wüllnerstraße. Come and see! Follow the Geotag on Twitter (hashtag #GEOTAG) and Facebook, and visit the official website! more
The Gulf Stream is ensuring the mild climate in Europe, everyone knows that. But does it really? Read Chris Rowan’s article on climate, Gulf Stream, heat capacity and atmospheric circulations.
Ritz et al. published a paper on the paleoseismicity of the North Tehran Fault, Iran. From trenching studies they claim at least 6 surface-rupturing events during the last 30 ka. Read the paper here at JGR-Solid Earth. Ritz, J.-F., H. Nazari, S. Balescu, M. Lamothe, R. Salamati, A. Ghassemi, A. Shafei, M. Ghorashi, and A. Saidi, 2012: Paleoearthquakes of the past 30,000 years along the North Tehran Fault (Iran), J. Geophys. Res., 117, B06305, doi:10.1029/2012JB009147. more
One of the best blog articles I recently read deals with the problems scientists face when they are interested in public outreach. Scicurious perfectly summarizes our situation.
The transit of Venus was a spectacular event, unfortunately not visible from Aachen. A really great photo collection is here at The Big Picture (Boston.com). A cold comfort for those who missed it (like me). They always have the best pictures there, by the way. more
Three papers published recently caught my eyes. First, Andrej Gosar investigated the earthquake environmental effects (EEEs) of the 12 April 1998 Mw =5.6 Krn Mountains earthquake, Slovenia. The quake measured VII-VIII on the EMS-98 scale, and Andrej found that the intensities reached the same values on the ESI2007 scale. He reports that the intensity distributions for both scales are comparable, but show some differences due to the sparsely populated epicentral area. The research concentrated on rockfalls for EEE determination. It’s a nice example that also moderate events can be characterized using the ESI2007 scale.
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More than two weeks have gone now after the Mw6.1 earthquake in Northern Italy, and a very strong aftershock has rattled the area again and caused casualties and more buildings to collapse. Several reports are already published on that event and we have lots of data which is waiting to be analyzed. Here’s a summary of data sources: more
The University Insubria (Como, Italy) has published the first report on the earthquake environmental effects that accompanied the Northern Italy “Finale Emilia Earthquake” of 20 May, 2012. On that day, a quake with magnitude Mw6.1 rocked the Po Plain, leaving seven people dead and hundreds of houses damaged. On 29 May, a very strong M5.8 aftershock occurred in the region. more
The INGV has published some new data on the earthquake that hit Italy in the morning of 20 May, 2012 and caused damages and casualties. Peak ground accelerations (PGA) reached 28%g in the epicentral area. This is not unusual for an event of that size. Peak ground velocities (PGV) were as high as 20 cm/s. The spectral response is more interesting. The 3s period response is 1.5%g only, at 1s period the area encountered 18%g, and for the 0.3s period the values reached 49%g, which is quite a lot for a Mw6.1 quake. However, the longer periods tend to be more dangerous for buildings. more
An earthquake of magnitude Mw6.1 (EMSC data; USGS: M6.0) rocked Northern Italy on 20 May, 2012 at 2 am UTC. The epicentre was located on 35 km NNW of Bologna in the Po Plain at around 10 km depth. Media report at least 6 people dead and up to 50 injured. Intensities reached up to EMS VIII. Especially old brick buildings suffered severe damages and many collapses are reported. more
The INQUA has set up an Early Career Researchers Committee (INQUA_ECR), and I am proud being a member of that. Its aim is to support young scientists, to get young scientists involved in INQUA activities, to build up (scientific) networks, and to use social media. I think that’s a great idea, because up to now, you won’t find INQUA on Twitter, Facebook etc. We have set up a Facebook page now – come on in and like us, share links and find job offers! Twitter will follow soon. We will organize young scientists meetings at conferences (e.g. in Australia next year) and provide a lot of infos for early career scientists.
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Last week was really weird for earthquake geologists. We have seen one of the strongest earthquakes ever measured and another handfull of major events, all of them showing strike-slip fault movement. Manuel came up with the perfect description at his Planeet Aarde Geoblog: It’s strike-slip week on Planet Earth. more
