For me the most important geo news this week was the court decision on the L’Aquila trial on Monday. A local court sentenced six scientists and one official for manslaughter to six years in prison – 2 years more than claimed by the prosecutor. Even though the scientists may not have found the best words to describe the earthquake hazard in L’Aquila, the decision is ridiculous in my opinion and caused an outcry throughout the scientific community. Especially the consequences for any risk assessment and public information might be fatal. I am really concerned. In the following I link to some blog posts that I found particularly interesting:
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Annals of Geophysics, the former Annali di Geofisica, published its latest issue today, dedicated to the 2012 Northern Italy earthquakes: Vol 55, No 4 (2012): The Emilia (northern Italy) seismic sequence of May-June, 2012: preliminary data and results. On 20 May 2012 an earthquake with a magnitude of Mw6.1 hit Finale Emilia, on 29 May an Mw5.8 event followed. The earthquakes caused a number of fatalities and significant damage. Earthquake environmental effects were widely observed, too. more
Our colleagues from the Bulgarian Academy of Science, Geological Institute “Strashimir Dimitrov“, have published a report on the coseismic and secondary effects of the May 22, 2012 Pernik earthquake, Western Bulgaria. The earthquake had a magnitude of MW5.6, see this special website of EMSC. Radulov et al. report intensities of up to VII (MSK) and various coseismic and secondary earthquake effects. 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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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 3rd INQUA-IGCP 567 International Workshop on Active Tectonics, Paleoseismology and Archeoseismology will be held in Morelia (Mexico) from 18 – 24 November 2012. The workshop is the continuation of the BaeloClaudia2009 and Corinth2011 events. We invite all scientists in the fields of earthquake geology, paleoseismology, archeoseismology, tsunami studies, earthquake engineering, seismic hazard assessment to participate in the workshop. We will try to provide travel grants from INQUA and IGCP for young scientists. See Acambay1912.org for detailled information, registration and abstract submission.
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Dear friends and colleagues,
we would like to remind you that there is less than a week left before the deadline for abstract submission – March 31, 2012 for the ESC-12 conference (http://www.esc2012-moscow.org/index.html).
We invite you to take part in a Paleoseismology symposium:
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Some preliminary results regarding geological, engineering and social aspects from the Van Mw 7.2 earthquake (23 October 2011) in Eastern Turkey from Prof. Lekkas and Prof. Karydis visit to the site. Have a look at the following link:
http://www.elekkas.gr/el/research/missions/turkey-mission.html
The Geological Survey of India released a report on earthquake-triggered landslides following the M6.9 Sikkim Earthquake, 18 September 2011. A total of 210 landslides has been reported. That’s earthquake environmental effects!
A special issue on the Christchurch Earthquake has been published in Seismological Research Letters. That’s maybe something I should blog about in greater detail later, so here’s the news and the link only.
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A new book with focus on paleoseismology has been published by GSA. Special Paper 479 – “Geological Criteria for Evaluating Seismicity Revisited: Forty Years of Paleoseismic Investigations and the Natural Record of Past Earthquakes” is edited by Franck A. Audemard M., Alessandro Maria Michetti and James P. McCalpin. Again, a lot of interesting reading stuff for your flight to Corinth…
