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Tidal notches are a generally excepted sea-level marker. Particularly in the Mediterranean, those shoreline indicators are oftentimes used to infer coastal coseismic activity when they occur displaced from present day sea-level. Now, paleoseismologists should be able to visualize coastal evolution in order to better understand coseismic history. more

It’s just a few months after the Kaikoura earthquake and now the first papers have been published already. Today’s paper round-up also includes studies on dating tsunami boulders, turbidite paleoseismology, paleoseismology in the Tien Shan, the recent Italy and New Zealand earthquakes, and earthquakes and social media. Enjoy reading! more

Today in the paper round-up (April 2017): Active Tectonics of the Makran, postseismic deformation at Bam, active faults and paleoseismology in Italy, Switzerland & Alaska, the first papers on the Kaikoura earthquake, tsunamis in Chile and the Western Mediterranean, and faults in Mexico. Enjoy reading! more

A special session on Toppled and Rotated Objects in Recent, Historic, and Prehistoric Earthquakes will be held during the upcoming 2017 Annual Meeting of the Seismological Society of America in Denver, Colorado from 18-20 April 2017.  Session Chairs will be Klaus-G. Hinzen and Rasool Anooshehpoor.

The main purpose of the session is to bring together researchers with diverse backgrounds (e.g., seismology, engineering, history, heritage conservation) who are interested in the behavior of objects, monuments, or simple structures during earthquakes and the stories which deformed, rotated or toppled objects can tell. The session will cover all aspects of toppled or rotated objects or simple structures which have suffered heavy deformation or damage during earthquakes. Topics will include: (1) observations, (2) documentation, (3) model building, (4) restoration, (5) mapping, and (6) correlation with geology.

Recent earthquake research has postulated correlation between the reaction of objects (monuments, columns, tombstones, etc.) and the seismic source in addition to local effects due to geological site conditions. As the laws of physics are time invariant, knowledge gained in reconnaissance surveys from well-studied instrumental earthquakes can reveal information about ground motions during historical and prehistorical earthquakes. Particular interest will be directed to man-made structures; however, due to similarities of the techniques used to study precariously balanced rocks and speleothems, contributions from these fields are also welcome.

The deadline for all proposed presentations, invited or otherwise, is 5 pm PST January 11, 2016.  All abstracts must be submitted by the deadline. Submitting abstracts through the online submission system only (There is a submission fee of $80 for regular attendees, $40 for students).

There are lots of other interesting sessions on earthquake geology, paleoseismology and related topics at the SSA meeting, make sure to check the full programme: http://meetings.seismosoc.org/special-sessions/

Dear friends and colleagues,

We are very sorry to announce that the 8th PATA Days in New Zealand can not take place in April 2017. The meeting has to be postponed to November 2017. The Kaikoura Earthquake has not only shaken up the entire country, but also disrupted the organisation of the PATA Days. All NZ earthquake geologists are currently in the field and they will have to deal with the EQ aftermath for the next couple of months. It is just technically impossible to organise the meeting in April under these circumstances. It’s also going to be really hard to get the NZ sponsorship that we counted on, as funds from places like the Earthquake Commission will be diverted to the Kaikoura EQ response & follow up research.

Of course, the field trip plans will also have to change completely. In November 2017 we will be able to see some of the most stunning effects of the Kaikoura Earthquake. In April, many roads will still be shut and many landowners will still be recovering and may not be amenable to curious scientists. By November next year, if we can incorporate some community outreach, then it will be much more appropriate to bring a field trip through the impacted area – pending open roads.

We are very sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and we hope for your understanding. Currently the NZ organising team is working hard to fix new dates and locations. The official PATA website will be updated as soon as they’re back in office for a couple of hours.

On behalf of the organisers,

Christoph & the EGSHaz team

Annals of Geophysics has just published a special issue on the devastating Amatrice Earthquake series in Central Italy: Vol 59, Fast Track 5 (2016): The Amatrice seismic sequence: preliminary data and results.

The special issue, edited by Marco Anzidei and Silvia Pondrelli, contains lots of field reports, first assessments, and plenty of primary data. Plus, it’s all OPEN ACCESS! more

The M7.8 Kaikoura Earthquake in New Zealand produced one of the most complex ruptures ever observed, involving many different faults. Earthquake environmental effects include up to 10 m offset at the Kekerengu Fault, secondary ruptures, a tsunami, coseismic uplift, landslides and rockfalls, liquefaction, and maybe even earthquake lights. Lots of blogs and websites provide coverage on this earthquake, e.g. Geonet, the Landslide Blog, and The Trembling Earth. Our colleagues from the Research Group on Earthquake Geology in Greece worked on the landslides that happened during the earthquake. George Papathanassiou sent me the link to their Preliminary Map of Co-Seismic Landslides for the M 7.8 Kaikoura, New Zealand Earthquake. more

Our colleague Paolo Galli is in the epicentral area of the M6.6 Italy earthquake and he sent us some amazing images. I’ll just reproduce them here without further comment, they speak for themselves. Captions by Paolo. Thanks a lot Paolo, and stay safe! more

A lot of new papers have been published on paleoseismology, earthquake geology, active tectonics and tsunamis last month. We have research on slowly deforming regions, on the active tectonics of Mexico, New Zealand, Armenia, and Iran, new data from the Kumamoto earthquake, plus some marine/coastal paleoseismology and tsunami studies. Enjoy reading!

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The EMERGEO Working Group has conducted extensive field work after the 24 August 2016 Amatrice Earthquake in Italy and put together a report on the coseismic effects. The report is in English and can be downloaded from the INGV earthquake Blog here: PDF (6.1 mb)

The report includes data on environmental earthquake effects like surface ruptures, fractures, landslides, and rockfalls. More than 2400 data points have been collected.

Please cite the report as follows:

• EMERGEO Working Group (2016). The 24 August 2016 Amatrice Earthquake: Coseismic Effects. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.61568

The EMERGEO Working Group consists of Pucci S., De Martini P.M., Nappi R., Pantosti D., Civico R., Ricci T., Moro M., Cinti F., Brunori C.A., Di Naccio D., Sapia V., De Ritis R., Gori S., Falcucci E., Caciagli M., Pinzi S., Villani F., Gaudiosi G., Burrato P., Vannoli P., Kastelic V., Montone P., Carafa M., Patera A., Vallone R. (all INGV) and Saroli M., Lo Sardo L., Lancia M. (University of Cassino and southern Lazio).

Thanks to Francesca Cinti for pointing me to this!