Klaus-G. Hinzen, Fabrizio Galadini, Shmuel Marco, Stathis Stiros, and Amanda M. Gaggioli invite contributions to an archaeoseismology session at the 37. Assembly of the European Seismological Commission (ESC) 2020, September 6-11 in Corfu, Greece. Deadline for abstract submission is April 12th 2020.

A Special Issue on continental strike-slip faults is planned in Mediterranean Geoscience Reviews, a new Springer journal: The 20th anniversary of the Eastern Marmara Earthquakes: Active tectonics of continental strike-slip faults

[…] continental strike-slip faults are complex structures on which the deformation is commonly distributed among a number of parallel to subparallel fault strands, making them in places significantly different in behaviour from their oceanic counterparts.

Thus, the goal of this issue is to publish a collection of high-quality papers on active tectonics of continental strike-slip faults around the globe using various disciplines, including but not limited to, tectonic geomorphology, paleoseismology, structural geology, crustal deformation, tectonic geodesy and seismology of continental strike-slip faults.

We hope you had a great start into 2020. May the new year bring exciting projects, secure funding, safe travels, and positive reviews. Quite a number of interesting studies have been published in the last few weeks, this is the latest paper round-up. Enjoy reading!

A recent study presented at the GSA meeting concludes that the UNESCO World Heritage site of Machu Picchu in Peru was intentionally built on faulted bedrock in order to ease the quarrying of the huge blocks used as construction material (Menegat, 2019). But has Machu Picchu seen big earthquakes in its lifetime? And if so, can it tell us something about their magnitude? After all, there are plenty of earthquakes in Peru, not only at the subduction zone but also in the Andes (e.g., Wimpenny et al., 2018). Some strong instrumental events occurred less than 100 km away from the Inca site. However, in the area of Machu Picchu we knew little about strong earthquakes. That’s why in 2016 a group of researchers from Peru, France, and the UK including myself started to investigate the active faults around Cusco and archaeoseismological damage to Machu Picchu and other famous Inca sites nearby in the CUSCO-PATA project.

These are the updated deadlines for the upcoming PATA Days in Chile, November 2020:

• Short abstract submission (300 words): 28 February, 2020
• Extended abstract (four pages as usual): 30 March, 2020
• Initial registration: 28 February, 2020
• Final registration: 30 March, 2020

The website with all the relevant information will be online very soon. Here’s the updated 1st circular with the new deadlines (PDF):

Shopping is stressful, reading new papers is exciting. Why not lean back in your favourite comfy chair, enjoy a hot tea and see what’s new in paleoseismology and related fields? These are the latest papers on paleoseismology, earthquakes, and active tectonics.

The recent publication of a paper on the Weitin Thrust (Papua New Guinea) by Chen, Milliner and Avouac (Fig. 1) gave me the opportunity to dig out and look back to some notes I wrote few months ago. Chen et al. use optical image correlation to document coseismic surface ruptures along the Weitin Thrust occurred in a Mw 8.0 event in 2000 and in a Mw 7.7 event in 2019. The ruptures overlap along a 20-km long portion, with 3-4 m of slip (Fig. 2).

Text: Gösta Hoffmann with contributions by Michaela Falkenroth, Valeska Decker, Bastian Schneider and Christoph Grützner

“The beaches in Oman are pristine.” What sounds like an introductory sentence to a tourist brochure has scientific significance. Natural conditions without anthropogenic overprint are characteristic for vast stretches along the 1700 km coastline of Oman from the Strait of Hormuz in the north to the border of Yemen in the south. This situation allows geological research addressing Quaternary sea-level change on various timescales spanning from minutes to millennia. Over the last couple of years, we carried out research funded by the Omani Government and the German Research Foundation (DFG). Our findings are currently published in a series of papers (Schneider et al. 2018; Ermertz et al. 2019; Falkenroth et al. 2019, subm.; Hoffmann et al. 2020a, b) and are briefly summarised here.

Today we have a number of studies on “classic” paleoseismology, but also a fair share of tsunami and historical seismicity/archaeoseismology research. Plus, some very interesting papers on methods and concepts. Not to forget the first one in the list that presents an extremely useful surface rupture database. I may write a long blog post on this one, soon. Enjoy reading!

There is an interesting job offer at the Scientific Service Gravimetry and Seismology of the Royal Observatory of Belgium and the Unit of Physical Geography and Quaternary of the University of Liège:

A postdoctoral researcher in earthquake geology and tectonic geomorphology

Please find the advert here:

…or see this link: https://www.egu.eu/jobs/2629/postdoctoral-researcher-in-earthquake-geology-and-tectonic-geomorphology/

Deadline for application is 29 November, 2019.