The INQUA has set up an Early Career Researchers Committee (INQUA_ECR), and I am proud being a member of that. Its aim is to support young scientists, to get young scientists involved in INQUA activities, to build up (scientific) networks, and to use social media. I think that’s a great idea, because up to now, you won’t find INQUA on Twitter, Facebook etc. We have set up a Facebook page now – come on in and like us, share links and find job offers! Twitter will follow soon. We will organize young scientists meetings at conferences (e.g. in Australia next year) and provide a lot of infos for early career scientists.
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Dear fellows,
please stop littering the beaches all over the world. Seriously. I like beaches and I guess so do you, so please, take your trash with you. Last week I’ve been to Oman and worked in the Al Sawadi area, where you have a great coast line (which will be spoiled by a huge hotel-apartment-something complex, soon). The only thing was, you almost couldn’t see the sand because it was covered with oil cans, plastic bags, bottles, tires, more oil cans, buckets, toilets (!), packaging shit, cups, and oil cans. Please, stop that.
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Now that the abstract submission deadline has passed you might be interested in somehow paleoseismicity-related sessions at the EGU2012. I decided to group the session by topic and my choice is absolutely based on personal interests. Sorry if I don’t mention every earthquake-related session.
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Recently, scientists from Switzerland came up with the news that fractured bedrock might amplify earthquake shaking. The say they observed an increase by factor 10, which seems huge. I knew amplifying by sediment basins, but this is new to me.
100 years ago on 6 January, Alfred Wegener presented his continental drift theory for the first time. The Blogosphere was full with articles, among them: more
Today is the 200th anniversary of the first event of the New Madrid Earthquake Series. There’s still an open debate on magnitudes, intensities, causative faults, recurrence intervalls and the implication for seismic hazard. Several websites and blogs have nice posts, among them:
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Earthquake prediction is possible! At least for toads (well, for bufo bufo only). And at least in Italy. And at least in 2009. Do you remember that story of toads having left their home (lake) before the L’Aquila earthuake and returning after the aftershock sequence? A new paper on this was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: Grant et al., 2011: Ground Water Chemistry Changes before Major Earthquakes and Possible Effects on Animals. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 8, 1936-1956; doi:10.3390/ijerph8061936.
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The Leonid Meteor shower will lighten the sky tonight, so keep your eyes open and please avoid going to bed. We can expect some beautiful shooting stars, resulting from the debris of comet 55P-Tempel-Tuttle.
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Some good articles came up last week, and two interesting things happened in northwestern Europe. A small earthquake (M2.7-M3.4) hit northern Netherlands in the Groningen area and people claimed light house damages despite the low magnitude. The event was caused by natural gas production. The gas company, Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), even has an online-formular for that! more
I am not sure if the geoscience community has realized that astronomy made three steps forward recently, so I’ll start out of topic. Three major astronomical problems have been solved! Really! more
Because of the recent news, these Friday links will deal with earthquake prediction. As in the L’Aquila case and in the Judgment Day “prophecy”, a reliable prediction is not possible until now. Repeat: NOT POSSIBLE! more
