After I came back from one week of holidays I checked the latest papers. Surprisingly, one was by myself! Finally IOP published our work on combined geoscience techniques in the Orkhon Valley, Central Mongolia. We used Georadar, SQUID-gradiometers, capacitive-coupled geoelectrics, octocopter stereoimages, shallow drillings, datings, and archaeological excavations for an geoarchaeological project. Using geophysical, archaeological and geological observations, we assumed a dating in the Turk/Uighur period (6th–9th century AD) and a re-use under Mongolian reign (12th–17th century AD). This would mean that this site is the furthermost walled structure in the peri-urban area of Khar Balgas. more
Since ten days I am in Greece now with a dozen of students. We started with an excursion in the western Peloponessus area and had a look at the regional tectonics, sedimentology (mainly Neogene Flysch units and young beach rocks), the large limestone horsts of Gavrovo and Ionian units, Ancient Olympia and recent mass movements. Then we began with field work for BSc, MSc and PhD theses. more
The sun dominated the geo-news this week. A very strong coronal mass ejection (or was it a sunquake…?) occured and hit Earth’s magnetic field on 24 January. A geomagnetic storm (Kp=5) lead to intense and beautiful northern lights around the Arctic Circle. The web is full of great images, the best ones that I came across can be found here at spaceweather and at National Geographic. more
This day’s Centerfault is one of the longest and best investigated faults in Spain, the sinistral Carboneras Fault Zone (CFZ) in Andalusia (36.85°N, 2.25°W). In the north, the CFZ is bounded by the Palomares fault, its southern tip reaches the Gulf of Almería. The NE-SW striking fault zone stretches over 50 km onshore and additional 100 km offshore (Gràcia et al., 2006) and is, therefore, capable of earthquakes with magnitudes > 7. It is one of the three major strike-slip faults in the Betics (Bell et al., 1997). more
In April 2011 we started on a field trip to investigate the Padul-Nigüelas Fault Zone in Spain (+/- 37°N, 3°36°W, see map here). Like the Wednesday Centerfault (5), the PNFZ is in the Granada Basin but some 40 km ENE. Delimiting Tortonian to Quaternary basin fillings to the Sierra Nevada, the PNFZ forms hardrock scarps. more
After we dealt with some faults in Greece, let’s move to Spain. The Ventas de Zafarraya Fault (VZF) west of the Granada basin (36.96° N, 4.14°W) has a beautiful morphologic expression and an exciting history. The fault bounds the Zafarraya polje to the south, with Quaternary sediments to the north (hanging wall) and limestones of the Internal Subbetics in the footwall. more
The Christchurch earthquake was the main topic of the Geoblogosphere this week. A great analysis on the effects was provided by Dave Petley in his Landslide Blog. Highly Allochthonous reasoned on seismic lensing, Ontario Geofish posted a lot on building security, and countless news sites came up with photos and reports. Frank Taylor, who hosted the GoogleEarthBlog before he left for a sailing trip around the world, was in Christchurch next to the Cathedral when the quake happened. On his Tahina Expedition website he reports on his experiences.
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The deadline of the International Workshop on Advanced Ground Penetrating Radar (IWAGPR) to be held in Aachen, June 2011 has been extended to 28 February:
“Dear Colleagues,
Due to many requests for extension, we have extended the deadline for submitting an extended abstract (camera ready paper, 4-6 pages) for IWAGPR2011 to February 28, 2011.
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The L’Aquila earthquake from 6 April, 2009 caused more than 308 fatalities and destroyed about 15,000 buildings. A new initiative set up by the British architect Barnaby Gunning aims on creating a 3D model of the destroyed city in its present state with SketchUp for GoogleEarth. The model will be used for “creating a valuable resourcef for masterplanning the reconstruction”, Gunning states on the project’s homepage. more
