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
Here’s an interesting opportunity in coastal paleoseismology:
The Division of Marine Science at the University of Southern Mississippi (NASA Stennis Space Center location) invites applications for a four-year PhD position in coastal paleoseismology starting no later than August 2017. This is an NSF funded project that aims to recover stratigraphic records of past earthquakes and tsunamis along the Hikurangi subduction margin, New Zealand. The project is part of a wider study on Hikurangi margin geodynamics, and the student will have the opportunity to attend workshops where we aim to integrate coastal paleoseismology with a wide variety of other geological and geophysical datasets. The ideal candidate will possess a skillset that includes: quantitative micropaleontology, paleoenvironmental reconstructions, sedimentology of coastal systems, and experience in adventurous fieldwork. The candidate is required to have an MSc in geology, earth sciences, marine sciences, or a closely related discipline.
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Dear colleagues,
The 8th PATA Days (Int’l workshop on Paleoseismology, Active Tectonics, Archaeoseismology) will be held in New Zealand from 3–9 April, 2017. The meeting will comprise scientific sessions, discussions, and a couple of very good field trips. Make sure to regularly check PATA2017.nz for updates.
Now the first circular has been published, download it here as pdf: 1st circular
See you all in New Zealand!
Several new papers deal with paleoseismology and active tectonics studies. Wiatr et al. used terrestrial LiDAR to analyse limestone bedrock scarps, Hornblow et al. investigated the Darfield earthquake source in NZ. Sarikaya et al. present new data on offset alluvial fans in Central Turkey; Xu et al. present geological data on two historical seismic events in Tibet. Tectonic morphology is used by Barcelona et al. in NW Argentina. Mathew et al. use remote sensing data to analyze coseismic deformation in China. Ed Garrett and colleagues present data on 1000 years of megathrust quakes in Chile, and Bemis et al. have an interesting article on UAVs and paleoseismology. more
The 2011 Christchurch earthquake series had severe consequences and surprised scientists for many reasons. Ground motions were extremely strong despite the relative moderate magnitudes of the quakes (MW 5.3-7.1). The events happened on a system of hitherto unknown faults, some of which are located directly below Christchurch. Earthquake environmental effects (EEE), especially liquefaction, were intense and widespread. It turned out that subsequent quakes reactivated the same feeder dikes of sand blows, showing that saturated sediments are susceptible of liquefaction no matter if they had been liquefied recently (also see the paper of Quigley et al. (2013) on the liquefaction effects). Another stunning lesson was the occurrence of intense rockfall in the vicinity of Christchurch. In a recently published study, Mackey and Quigley (2014) dated rockfall boulders with 3He and show that they allow to estimate the recurrence intervall of local seismic events like the 2011 series. This works is a very interesting way to use EEE for paleo-earthquake studies. more
Good news for students interested in a PhD on tectonics in New Zealand: John Townend announced that several scholarships are available. Deadline for application is 1 July 2014.
PhD students are sought to work on several seismological and geophysical topics within the Institute of Geophysics, School of Geography, Environment, and Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington (VUW). The geophysics group at Victoria University of Wellington has an established track record of research in seismology, tectonics, crustal geophysics, and structural geology. In the most recent Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) evaluation, Victoria University of Wellington was ranked first in New Zealand for research excellence and was also ranked first in New Zealand in Earth Sciences. more
The latest issue of the Seismological Research Letters (SRL) has at least three papers dealing with topics interesting for paleoseismologists.
Hinzen et al. studied the rotation of objects (e.g., monuments) during the L’Aquila earthquake of 2009. They scanned the rotated objects with a high-res laser scanner, built discrete-element-models from the data and simulated the shaking necessary to cause the deformation. The results help to better estimate earthquake parameters from earthquake archaeological effects (EAEs).
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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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On Monday, 13 June, Christchurch was again rocked by earthquakes that caused damages and left people injured. Three significant events happened within two hours. At 1:00 UTC a mb5.0 event occured, followed by a Mw6.0 at 2:20 UTC and a M4.6 at 2:40 UTC. The strongest event caused instrumental intensities of up to VII close to the city. Update: Geonet reports a magnitude of 6.3. more
A M6.3 earthquake hit Christchurch, New Zealand on 22 February (21 Feb in UTC), leaving at least 75 people dead and hundreds injured or missing. Hundreds of houses were destroyed, including the Christchurch Cathedral, and damages will probably sum up to some billion dollars. On 4 September 2010 (3 Sept in UTC), a M7.0 event struck Christchurch, but then no one was killed. So: what’s the difference between the two events?
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