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The UNESCO World Heritage site “Caliphal City of Medina Azahara” in southern Spain was built in the 10^th Century by the first Caliph of al-Andalus, Abd al-Rahman III. The destruction and consequent abandonment of the city were thought to result from a civil war between 1009/10 AD. In a new paper, Rodríguez Pascua et al. investigate the role of an earthquake in the sudden abandonment and ruin of the city. They identified eleven types of Earthquake Archaeological Effects (EAEs), including dropped key stones in arches, tilted walls, conjugated fractures in brick-made walls, conjugated fractures and folds in regular pavements, and dipping broken corners in columns. More than 150 structural measurements imply mean ground motion direction of N140°–160° E. This indicates oriented damage to the buildings. From recent events such as the Lorca Earthquake we know that this pattern can be caused by earthquakes. The authors conclude that probably two strong earthquakes with intensities ≥VIII MSK/EMS occurred in the 11^th and 12^th centuries AD.

This months edition of the paper list surely has something interesting for everybody – a wide variety of papers both geographically and thematically. There are classical paleoseismology studies, submarine and tsunami stuff, archaeoseismology, fault physics, and much more from all around the globe. Enjoy reading and let me know if I have missed something.

Alexander Strom and Kanatbek Abdrakhmatov will run their famous summer school again after it had to be cancelled due to Covid-19. The summer school is designed for students and will take place from 14-29 August, 2023, in Kyrgyzstan. The topics include mass movements, neotectonics, and geomorphology in the epicentral area of the M7.2 1992 Suusamyr Earthquake. Find all the details in the announcement below.

This is the last paper round-up in 2022. We have a lot of research on historical earthquakes and Asian tectonics. Don’t miss the new paper by Nurminen et al. on the updated surface rupture database. Enjoy reading!
(UPDATE 2022-12-02: I’ve added the new Alsop et al. paper because the free-to-read link expires in 50 days…)

It’s early November – time for the latest paper roundup. This time there are many earthquake studies from China and California. New Zealand and Australia got some good coverage, too, but there’s also news from Central Europe. Plus, burglargrams! Enjoy reading.

I am on my way back from the PATA Days in France, which were great. A detailed report will follow later. In the meantime, enjoy reading the latest papers – we have a nice variety of topics and working areas.

The Aix-en-Provence PATA Days are fast approaching and the meeting programme looks super-exciting! Unfortunately, I’ll not attend the congress, but my soul will be there in poster form – presenting author is 1^st year PhD student Marco Pizza and the topic is the likelihood of primary surface faulting.

Some earthquakes produce surface faulting, others do not. Several factors affect the outcome of this dichotomous variable (faulting YES/NO), including magnitude, depth, earthquake kinematic and local lithology. The probability of having surface rupture for a given magnitude is a key ingredient in Fault Displacement Hazard Assessment (FDHA). This probability is derived from empirical datasets and the state of the art is summarized in Figure 1, taken from the recently published IAEA Tecdoc on probabilistic FDHA.

This is the latest list of papers on paleoseismology and related fields. This time we have a lot of new studies on Eastern and Central Asia – very interesting reads! Enjoy reading and let me know if I have missed something.

Today we have a number of articles on fault physics and some papers that use novel or unconventional ways to address large earthquakes and their proxies. Enjoy reading!

We investigated homogeneous muds, turbidites, and debrites that were preserved in a 457-m deep ICDP drilling (220-0 ka) from the Dead Sea depocenter. Based on previous flash flood measuring, surface plume monitoring, and sediment traps monitoring in the lake center, we link homogeneous muds in the deep core to overflows, and link turbidites and debrites to underflows. The study bridges the gap between our understanding of modern sediment density flow processes and deposits preserved in a long-term geological record in the Dead Sea, a tectonically active subaqueous environment (Dead Sea rift zone).