Natural Disaster & Urban Life
3rd EU-JAPAN Research Center International Symposium
5 & 6 November 2012
Faculty of Arts, Erasmushuis, room 08.16
In recent years, natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunami, storm surges, heavy rain and tornadoes have occurred frequently in many parts of the world, resulting in the loss of many lives and property. The scale of calamities such as earthquakes caused by tremors in the earth’s crust and movements along fault lines, or tsunami generated by earthquakes, are increasing alarmingly in pace with the advance of urbanization, leading to unprecedented complex disasters. In addition, explosive population growth and mass consumption of fossil fuels and other energy sources are indirect causes which contribute to localized ‘guerilla’ rainfalls and tornadoes striking cities and resulting instantly in the accumulated loss of social and personal capital. more
Let’s see, this is my 1st post here, thanks again for the invitation. Today, an interesting story circulated through mass and science media. The article by Kremer et al. published yesterday in Nature Geoscience presents geophysical and sedimentological evidence of potential tsunamis in the rather exotic environment of Lake Geneva. This phenomenon is not new at all and has been investigated by others before, but I pretty much share the authors conclusion, that the hazard of tsunami-like events in continental lakes deserves higher attention in the future.
Two new tsunami papers have been published recently, and I am happy to be co-author of one of them. In Hoffmann et al. 2012 we report on our observations along the NE Omani coast between Fins and Sur. We found a ridge of imbricated boulders parallel to the coast, but in heights of several meters above m.s.l. on top of a cliff and dozens of meters inland. Also, extremely large blocks clearly stemming from the cliff were found. We used LiDAR to determine the mass of very large blocks (up to 40 t) and found this method to result in far lower weights than estimated with the classical method. more
Two new paper have recently been published on the Tohoku Tsunami that devastated the Japanese coast in March, 2011.
In Sedimentary Geology, Chagué-Goff et al. published their results from investigations of chemical markers left by the waves in March, 2011. The authors sampled the tsunamites two, five and seven months after the event and determined the concentrations of chemical markers such as C, Ca, Cl, K, N, S, and Sr. 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
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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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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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
The 86th Italian Geological Society Congress will be held in Arcavacata di Rende (CS) on 18-20 September 2012, at the Università della Calabria, Italy.
We advertise Session TS2.2: Paleoseismicity of the Mediterranean Region and surface – faulting hazard in urban areas. Convenors: Cinti F., Cucci L., Michetti A.M., De Martini P.M., Roberts G. more
The 3rd INQUA-IGCP 567 International Workshop on Active Tectonics, Paleoseismology and Archeoseismology will be held in Morelia (Mexico) from 18 – 24 November 2012. The workshop is the continuation of the BaeloClaudia2009 and Corinth2011 events. We invite all scientists in the fields of earthquake geology, paleoseismology, archeoseismology, tsunami studies, earthquake engineering, seismic hazard assessment to participate in the workshop. We will try to provide travel grants from INQUA and IGCP for young scientists. See Acambay1912.org for detailled information, registration and abstract submission.
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