This is an interesting topical session at the GSA 2021 meeting:
‘T11. Recent to Long-Term Slip Histories of Active Faults and Folds in Cascadia’
at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America. We hope to attract a diverse array of talks that explore the faults and folds in the upper plate of the Cascadia subduction zone that are both active and have protracted histories of fault slip. We welcome submissions summarizing recent tectonic geomorphologic, paleoseismologic, geodetic, seismic reflection, and other data that characterize deformation of Quaternary-active structures and seek contributions from geologic, geophysical, and related research that examines the longer-term history of active faults. We particularly invite studies in the forearc, arc, and backarc of Cascadia that bridge the gap between Quaternary evidence of fault activity with longer records of fault slip that may address the consistency of slip rates over time and the timing of fault/fold initiation.
Just as last month we have a veeeery long list today. Quite a number of papers deal with new data from Central Asia and S America, but of course there’s also something on the menu for connoisseurs of archaeoseismology, European, N American & African tectonics, and physics-based fault studies. Enjoy reading, stay safe and let me know if I’ve overlooked something.
The 2021 meeting on “Intraplate Active Tectonics and Seismicity in Central/Western Europe“ will take place on 23 March, 2021. These meetings were held before traditionally in several countries, this year it will be held via Zoom. The meeting used to be organised in the Euregio area, Aachen/NRW, Belgium and the Netherlands, but is now opened up to include more regions, as there is a joint topic that connects many places: intraplate tectonics.
Today’s list is again very long. It contains a lot of really cool stuff from Central Europe and the Alps, and many interesting studies from China and Central Asia. Connoisseurs of American tectonics will also be happy I promise. Plus, quite a number of papers on methods and earthquake/fault physics in general. Enjoy reading!
This time we have a lot of papers on the active tectonics of the Americas, especially along their west coast. Of course on the west coast you say? Sure, but the recent M5.6 in Guyana, a shallow thrust event in a seemingly aseismic area, reminded us that such quakes can basically happen everywhere and at any time – they are just rare and hard to find in the geological record. Enjoy reading!
Some colleagues told me that 2020 was the most productive year they ever had – without the distraction of field work and meetings they managed to write up a lot of things they’ve had on their desks. Others reported exactly the opposite. In any case, I hope that this year life will go back to normal and I wish you a wonderful 2021. Here are the latest papers, quite a good start into the next decade. Stay safe!
This is the first attempt to apply a computational fluid dynamic modeling-based quantitative “fossil seismograph” to develop a large earthquake record.
The record is calibrated to historic earthquakes, for which the Dead Sea area has a famously long span, and it confirms a clustered earthquake recurrence pattern and a group-fault temporal clustering model.
The record yields much shorter mean recurrence for large (≤ 1.4 kyr vs. 7-11 kyr) and moderate (≤ 500 yr vs. 1600 yr) earthquakes than previously obtained, thus reveals a much higher seismic hazard than previously appreciated on this slow-slipping plate boundary.
The 2020 PATA Days in Chile, originally planned for November this year, had to be postponed to November 2021. Let’s keep the enthusiasm for the realization of this nice congress in the coastal Atacama Desert of northern Chile! On 18 December, 2020 there will be a webinar including lectures on paleoseismology and seismic hazard, as well as an introduction to recent advances in active tectonics along the major northern Chile seismic gap. In addition, the first short-abstract volume in digital version will be released.
