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
Today is GeoScience Day (Geotag) at RWTH Aachen University! Organized by the Chair of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, this event will start at 9:30 am in the Couvenhalle, Aachen. Geoscience-related talks and a poster exhibition will only be some parts of the very interesting program. The Geo summer party will be started after the “Geotag” at 6:00 pm at the parking lot of the Geoscience Institute at Wüllnerstraße. Come and see! Follow the Geotag on Twitter (hashtag #GEOTAG) and Facebook, and visit the official website! more
Most of us who are interested in tectonics and paleoseismology subscribed to the EQ-GEO-NET mailing list. The mailing list is a great tool to share info on our research and to discuss. Now the list has a new address: eq-geo-net-ml@aist.go.jp
If you don’t receive messages anymore or if you want to subscribe, please contact eq-geo-net-admin-ml@aist.go.jp more
The Gulf Stream is ensuring the mild climate in Europe, everyone knows that. But does it really? Read Chris Rowan’s article on climate, Gulf Stream, heat capacity and atmospheric circulations.
Ritz et al. published a paper on the paleoseismicity of the North Tehran Fault, Iran. From trenching studies they claim at least 6 surface-rupturing events during the last 30 ka. Read the paper here at JGR-Solid Earth. Ritz, J.-F., H. Nazari, S. Balescu, M. Lamothe, R. Salamati, A. Ghassemi, A. Shafei, M. Ghorashi, and A. Saidi, 2012: Paleoearthquakes of the past 30,000 years along the North Tehran Fault (Iran), J. Geophys. Res., 117, B06305, doi:10.1029/2012JB009147. more
One of the best blog articles I recently read deals with the problems scientists face when they are interested in public outreach. Scicurious perfectly summarizes our situation.
The transit of Venus was a spectacular event, unfortunately not visible from Aachen. A really great photo collection is here at The Big Picture (Boston.com). A cold comfort for those who missed it (like me). They always have the best pictures there, by the way. more
Three papers published recently caught my eyes. First, Andrej Gosar investigated the earthquake environmental effects (EEEs) of the 12 April 1998 Mw =5.6 Krn Mountains earthquake, Slovenia. The quake measured VII-VIII on the EMS-98 scale, and Andrej found that the intensities reached the same values on the ESI2007 scale. He reports that the intensity distributions for both scales are comparable, but show some differences due to the sparsely populated epicentral area. The research concentrated on rockfalls for EEE determination. It’s a nice example that also moderate events can be characterized using the ESI2007 scale.
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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
An earthquake of magnitude Mw6.1 (EMSC data; USGS: M6.0) rocked Northern Italy on 20 May, 2012 at 2 am UTC. The epicentre was located on 35 km NNW of Bologna in the Po Plain at around 10 km depth. Media report at least 6 people dead and up to 50 injured. Intensities reached up to EMS VIII. Especially old brick buildings suffered severe damages and many collapses are reported. 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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Last week was really weird for earthquake geologists. We have seen one of the strongest earthquakes ever measured and another handfull of major events, all of them showing strike-slip fault movement. Manuel came up with the perfect description at his Planeet Aarde Geoblog: It’s strike-slip week on Planet Earth. more
