On 11 April 2012, a Mw8.6 strike-slip earthquake occurred off Sumatra in a kind of intra-plate setting and came as a surprise to the earthquake community. Such a strong strike-slip event was not expected, we always thought that the huge thrust quakes at subduction zones were the only ones to release that much energy. Now a press release by CalTech reports on the latest studies that came to the result that many previously unknown perpendicular faults ruptured at this event. Immediately some journalists suggested that this might also happen at the San Andreas Fault. I do not know of any paleoseismological evidence that this has happened there before. However, how likely is this scenario?
Link to the paper: An earthquake in a maze: compressional rupture branching during the April 11 2012 M8.6 Sumatra earthquake. more
A paleoseismological trench has been opened at San Carlo – Sant’Agostino. At this place, liquefaction features and other environmental earthquake effects were recognized after the Finale Emilia earthquake of 2 May 2012, magnitude MW6.1. The trench reveals normal fault features close to the surface. Our colleague Alex Chatzipetros from Earthquake Geology of Greece posted a great article on the trench work and has all the interesting photos. more
The Journal of Iberian Geology has now published a Special Issue “Active Faults in Iberia“, with J.J. Martínez-Diaz, E. Masana, and M.A. Rodríguez-Pascua as guest editors: J Iber Geol, 38 (1), 201. This volume comprises a great collection of new data on active faults, paleoseismology, intraplate earthquakes, and seismic hazard. One article also introduces the Quaternary Active Faults Database of Iberia. And the best thing is – all articles are open access and available for download! more
I hope you have reserved some time for reading – here comes plenty of great new material on one of the most interesting tectonic features on earth, the Dead Sea Transform. The Israel Journal of Earth Sciences has published a special issue: The Dead Sea Rift as a natural laboratory for neotectonics and paleoseismology, Volume 58, Number 3 – 4. The papers are an outcome of the 2009 INQUA joint Israel/Jordan fieldtrip with the same name. I was lucky enough to have participated in that field trip. It was for sure one of the best field trips I ever had. more
Klaus and me went to the SSA 2012 annual meeting in San Diego in April. The conference was great and very focussed. I really like that kind of rather small meetings, where almost everything is interesting for me. I saw a lot of interesting posters and great talks and especially liked the paleoseismology and archeoseismology sessions (of course!).
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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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A very nice animation of the 2011 worldwide seismicity for earthquakes M ≥ 4.5 in the following link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwWn_W6ZbT4&feature=youtu.be (with sound intensity for each earthquake plotted on an orthographic globe map).
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Folks at Arizona State University and San Diego State University are conducting a study to test the repeatability, accuracy, and precision of lateral displacement measurements derived from high-resolution topographic Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data. Please take a few minutes to participate! If you have any questions about the research or would like to use the materials as a classroom exercise, please feel free to email Barrett at jbsalisb@asu.edu.
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This beautiful, isolated rock stands in the Alkyonides Gulf, the northwestern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It has some beautiful notches, which indicate recent uplift. It is situated right on the footwall of an active fault, which was activated during the 1981 earthquake sequence. It is not so easy to use those notches as sea level indicators or for measuring tectonic movements if both effects have to be taken into account. The fault has a huge throw and a beautiful scarp (limestone) with lots of slickensides. One of my favourite places in Greece. Well, the entire Perachora peninsula is worth a visit – an earthquake geologist’s Disney Land!
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I took this picture in an iron-nickel mine in Albania. Here we see the contact between the underlying ultramafics and the carbonates on top. The fluids circulated in the mafics and the iron-nickel ores are trapped at the lithological boundary. The ore is shiny green and occurs in hundreds of small bands in a small area along the contact only. I love this picture because the contact is so sharp. A fault zone nearby bears very beautiful conglomerates which I always wanted to have for my bathroom…
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