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Hungary plans to build a new nuclear power plant (NPP) at the banks of the Danube near Paks, where another NPP is already running for several decades. An interesting story is currently unfolding around the geological site conditions, and this story includes paleoseismology. In short, the Austrians and external experts argue the planned NPP Paks II will sit on a capable fault, while the Hungarians say there is a fault, but it can’t rupture the surface. Actually, it’s a bit more complicated…

INQUA’s XXI congress will take place in Rome in 2023. This is the most important gathering for the Quaternary community, taking place every four years only. Active tectonics, paleoseismology and related fields have found their home in INQUA’s TERPRO Commission (Terrestrial Processes, Deposits & History). TERPRO provides support for scientific meetings and networking; they have always been involved in the PATA Days and supported dozens of early career researchers and researchers from developing countries with travel grants for these meetings. If you want to support the earthquake community within INQUA, please join TERPRO here. It’s free and comes without obligations. It only means you’ll receive the INQUA newsletters, you can apply for funding for meetings and workshops (as an organiser), and you can elect the TERPRO officers.

Currently, the organising committee of the INQUA Congress in Rome is accepting session proposals for the 2023 congress. Please make sure your areas of interest are represented at the conference. If in doubt, contact your TERPRO officers. Let’s present some great earthquake science at INQUARoma2023!

These are the latest papers on paleoseismology, active tectonics, and archaeoseismology. Don’t forget to save the date for the Pata Days in France: 26-30 September, 2022. http://pata-days.org/

Here we are with the latest list of papers on paleoseismology and active tectonics, and we start with a surprise: A published paper on the 8 January 2022 Ms 6.9 Menyuan earthquake! A mere three weeks after the event, Yang et al. have already managed to get their rapid report accepted. Spoiler: It includes an offset animal footprint trace in snow! But there’s a lot of other interesting stuff in the list, too – check it out!

Frontiers in Earth Sciences plans to publish a new Special Issue (Research Topic as they call it) on “Seismically deforming active plates above active subduction zones: geological, paleoseismological and geodetic perspectives”. Deadline for abstract submission 31 March, 2022. Guest editors of this SI are Alessandro M. Michetti, James McCalpin, Jenni Robertson, Silvia Brizzi, Jorien van Der Wal, and Marco Meschis.

Soft-sediment deformation structures are often used as evidence for paleo-earthquakes. When several deformed horizons are present, one has to ask whether repeated slope failure at the sediment surface has built-up the stratigraphic record. Another option would be that a single failure event could have concurrently created surficial and sub-surface deformed horizons at different stratigraphic levels. The implications of these differing models are important for the timing of palaeo-earthquakes. In a new paper, Alsop et al. used the late Pleistocene Lisan Formation from the Dead Sea Basin to catalogue and establish key criteria that help distinguish surface versus sub-surface intrastratal deformation of soft-sediments. The paper is available for free for 50 days!

A new Special Issue has just been published in the Journal of South American Earth Sciences: Hazardous Faults in Latin America. The issue contains 16 research papers and an editorial. It was edited by Carlos Costa and Laurence Audin. The issue collects highly interesting contributions from all across the continent. Although subduction megaquakes on the Chilean Trench come with the highest magnitudes, onshore faults pose a significant hazard and historical events have had catastrophic consequences. Also, studying crustal earthquakes and faults is a pre-requisite for understanding crustal deformation, mountain building, and the landscape response to tectonics. Read the Special Issue now, because all papers are free to access via ScienceDirect until 20 Jan 2022.

A new special issue has been published in MDPI’s Geosciences. The collection “New Perspectives in the Definition/Evaluation of Seismic Hazard through Analysis of the Environmental Effects Induced by Earthquakes” collects five review papers, 13 research articles, and an editorial. The SI was edited by Sabina Porfido, Giuliana Alessio, Germana Gaudiosi, and Rosa Nappi. The volume is also available as a book. Download the flyer as a pdf here.

Western Slovenia hosts well-known active strike-slip faults, which accommodate the northward motion of the Adriatic Plate. So far, very little was known about large earthquakes on those faults. This is mainly due to the low slip rates. In a new paper we present geomorphological, geophysical, and paleoseismological data from the Idrija and Predjama Faults, which are among the longest faults in the area. We show that tectonic geomorphology and paleoseismology are really complicated in this kind of geological setting, but we also present data that indicate strong earthquakes during the Holocene. Here’s a short summary of what we did and what we found:

Only one month has gone and the list of new papers is again quite long. We have classic paleoseismology, a number of studies on historical earthquakes, some cool tsunami stuff, and a few more general papers on earthquake geology; plus: an inspiring article by Jim and Eldon on the science and the business of paleoseismology. Enjoy reading!