On 27 March, 1964, an earthquake of magnitude 9.2 occurred offshore Alaska (Plafker, 1965) and caused a Pacific-wide tsunami. This quake was the second most powerful that was ever recorded and is also referred to as the Great Alaska Earthquake. The USGS has now released a report on a comparable tsunami scenario. The SAFRR (Science Application for Risk Reduction) Tsunami Scenario deals with a tsunami caused by a major quake off Alaska and investigates the possible impact at the coast of California. more
The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Geological Survey of Belgium, Brussels, invites applicants for a 4-year research fellow (postdoctoral level) in coastal paleoseismology/Quaternary environmental change. Starting date: 1 June 2014.
The successful candidate will work in the framework of a 4-year research project, funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office: ‘QuakeRecNankai’ – Paleo-tsunami and earthquake records of ruptures along the Nankai Trough, offshore South-Central Japan.
Annals of Geomorphology has now published a new volume on Paleotsunamis in its Supplementary Issues. Issue 57 (4) is all about Reconstructing and modeling palaeotsunami events by multi-proxy geoscientific analyses. The volume is an outcome of the 2011 Corinth conference and edited by Andreas Vött, Klaus Reicherter and Ioannis Papanikolaou. I especially like it not only because I’ve organized the conference, but also because I am familiar with some of the study sites. Finally, I am co-author of the last paper. more
Witold pointed me to a new book on tsunamis that was published by Springer. It’s called Tsunami Events and Lessons Learned – Environmental and Societal Significance and it is edited by Y.A. Kontar, V. Santiago-Fandiño and T. Takahashi. The book contains 25 papers on the following topics: 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).
The latest issue (May 2013) of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA) is dedicated to the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami of March 2011. The studies published therein deal with the source models of the megaquake and rupture dynamics, the ground motions, the tsunami propagation, earthquake triggered landslides and induced seismicity, earthquake environmental effects, and one paper presents a new proposal for an extended Tsunami Intensity scale. more
Update: Read the article of The Times of Oman here!
Today at 11:52:50 UTC a magnitude 6.3 earthquake occurred in SW Iran close to the shore in a depth of 10 km. The event was widely felt in Iran and across the NE Arabian Peninsula. Moment tensor solution reveal a thrust mechanism, which is in perfect concordance with the historic seismicity pattern. The event was caused by the convergence of the Arabian and Eurasian plates, that not only built up the impressive Zagros Mountains, but also lead to the formation of the Makran Subduction Zone. Relative plate motions there are as fast as 20 mm/yr in the central part. more
In the last twelve hours, a series of major earthquakes struck the Santa Cruz Islands. Beginning with the activation of a thrust fault with a M8.0 (M7.9) earthquake, almost fifty aftershocks hit the region. A regional tsunami warning was released short six minutes after the first quake at 1:12 UTC and has now been cancelled.
The latest issue of the Seismological Review Letters (SRL) contains some interesting papers on strong earthquakes, seismicity, and tsunamis. Here’s a list of papers that could be especially interesting for the paleoseismicity community: more
Pa·le·o·seis·mic·i·ty [ pālē·ə·sīz·mĭs′ĭ·tē ] noun, plural -ties. Ancient earthquake activity.
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