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Today’s list is again very long. It contains a lot of really cool stuff from Central Europe and the Alps, and many interesting studies from China and Central Asia. Connoisseurs of American tectonics will also be happy I promise. Plus, quite a number of papers on methods and earthquake/fault physics in general. Enjoy reading!

Ray Weldon from the University of Oregon will talk about How better geology can improve seismic hazard estimates in Kyrgyzstan. The webinar is open for everyone interested and will be held via zoom (https://uni-jena-de.zoom.us/j/8941887790 Meeting-ID: 894 188 7790; Password: 820815).

Date: 22 February, 2021

Time: 3 pm GMT (7 am San Francisco; 3 pm London; 4 pm Berlin & Paris; 8:30 pm Delhi; 9 pm Almaty; 11 pm Beijing)

Following the 2020-12-29 magnitude 6.4 earthquake in Croatia, a late breaking session was accepted by EGU. The session The Dec. 2020 earthquake sequence in Petrinja, Croatia, and its seismotectonic and geodynamic environments will be convened by Stéphane Baize, Sara Amoroso, Lucilla Benedetti, Petra Jamšek Rupnik, Branko Kordić, Snjezana Markušić, and Bruno Pace. The deadline for abstracts is 28 February, 2021. Abstracts need to be send to the conveners by email. You’ll find the email addresses on the session website.

The recognition of sedimentological traces of earthquakes in the form of seismites within Pleistocene sediments is the main objective of the GREBAL project (Recognition of traces left by earthquakes in Pleistocene sediments affected by glacio- isostatic rebound in the Baltic Sea Basin). The investigations focus primarily on Poland, Germany, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Project leader Małgorzata (Gosia) Pisarska-Jamroży has summed up new results from this international research effort.

This time we have a lot of papers on the active tectonics of the Americas, especially along their west coast. Of course on the west coast you say? Sure, but the recent M5.6 in Guyana, a shallow thrust event in a seemingly aseismic area, reminded us that such quakes can basically happen everywhere and at any time – they are just rare and hard to find in the geological record. Enjoy reading!

Some colleagues told me that 2020 was the most productive year they ever had – without the distraction of field work and meetings they managed to write up a lot of things they’ve had on their desks. Others reported exactly the opposite. In any case, I hope that this year life will go back to normal and I wish you a wonderful 2021.
Here are the latest papers, quite a good start into the next decade. Stay safe!

1. Key points

This is the first attempt to apply a computational fluid dynamic modeling-based quantitative “fossil seismograph” to develop a large earthquake record.

The record is calibrated to historic earthquakes, for which the Dead Sea area has a famously long span, and it confirms a clustered earthquake recurrence pattern and a group-fault temporal clustering model.

The record yields much shorter mean recurrence for large (≤ 1.4 kyr vs. 7-11 kyr) and moderate (≤ 500 yr vs. 1600 yr) earthquakes than previously obtained, thus reveals a much higher seismic hazard than previously appreciated on this slow-slipping plate boundary.

This year was truly a roller coaster ride! A large part of the world is still battling Covid-19; meetings, conferences, and workshops are held online, and teaching has also changed a lot. December is usually crowded with deadlines and (virtual) AGU, but I hope you find some time to check out the latest papers on earthquakes, paleoseismology, and active tectonics. We have a great list of papers, this time with exciting news from Italy, New Zealand and the Dead Sea, a lot of historical seismicity studies, and many contributions on Asian tectonics. Stay safe & happy researching!

Currently there are several Special Issues in the making that may be relevant for paleoseismology folk.
Update (2020-11-20): additional SI in Geosciences on morphogenic faulting

Since field work is not possible for many of us right now, it’s possibly a good idea to catch up with the latest literature on paleoseismology, active tectonics, and earthquake geology. This time there are many studies on Central Asian tectonics, but also interesting work on the Mediterranean and the US. Stay safe, enjoy reading, and please let me know if I’ve missed something.