Author: Temblor

By Ross S. Stein, Ph.D., Temblor CEO   Citation: Ross S. Stein (2019), Triumphs, Conundrums, and Debates in Earthquake Forecasting and Seismic Hazards, Temblor, http://doi.org/10.32858/temblor.062   At the American Geophysical …

Evacuations in Bogotá and the suspension of transportation systems followed a magnitude-6.2 earthquake, which struck on or near where the North Andean Block grinds against South American Plate. The mainshock was followed just 15 minutes later by a magnitude-5.7 aftershock. Further large aftershocks remain a possibility

Aiming to make energy production safer, scientists developed a new model for forecasting earthquakes caused by oil and gas operations in the central U.S.

As of today, some 24 people are dead and 650 injured, and many more are unaccounted for in collapsed concrete buildings on the coastal plains surrounding the epicenter. The quake likely struck on a ‘blind thrust fault’ that does not reach the Earth’s surface but had nevertheless been previously identified by geologists.

Realtime aftershock statistics may be able to identify whether an even larger event is likely to follow, the authors of a new study argue. Additional prospective testing and more strategic public communication will be needed prior to deployment

Warnings were issued for the magnitude-4.5 and magnitude-4.7 quakes 5-6 seconds after they ruptured via ShakeAlert, and alerts reached beta testers of the MyShake app about 2 seconds later. While important progress, these intrinsic delays mean that those who experienced strong shaking received no warning. Alert delays may be longer as the number of alert recipients grows.

The recent acquittal of the TEPCO executives in the Fukushima power plant tragedy hearkens back to the trial of the Italian seismologists who were charged with negligence after the L’Aquila, Italy, earthquakes. Both events raise the question: How much do you prepare for the most dreadful disasters, which result from truly large or rare paroxysms of the Earth?

A 2018 study published in Nature by Phoebe DeVries and her colleagues at Harvard and Google claimed that Deep Learning was able to predict the locations of aftershocks with accuracies far greater than Coulomb stress transfer could achieve

Last night, nearly everyone in the greater Bay area was awakened at 10:30 pm by a Magnitude 4.5 shock near the town of Pleasant Hill, north of Walnut Creek

A new comprehensive study of almost 100,000 earthquakes in Japan suggest that large or small, quakes look alike in the first 0.2 seconds

One hospital, four schools, and nine administrative buildings are severely damaged. Some 29 schools of various degrees of damage were forced to close, at least temporarily.

Based on the M 5.7 aftershocks thus far, there is a 3% chance that it could trigger a magnitude-6.5 or larger shock in the next year. The M 5.7 also brought a portion of the Marmara Fault significantly closer to failure.

The Magnitude 7.1 earthquake abruptly halted aftershocks on the M 6.4 cross fault. It also produced a far-flung aftershock sequence that touched the San Andreas, but refused to cross the Garlock Fault.

The site of the 4th of July shock was stressed by the great 1872 Owens Valley quake and the 1992 Landers quake. Their overlapping stress lobes may have raised the stakes for this region.

While Japan is moving entire towns out of the tsunami zone in the wake of the 2011 Tohoku disaster, Oregon is doing the opposite, trading public safety for developer profits.

The mysterious ‘Fontana Trend’ lit up in shallow and widely felt shocks during the past week, putting residents on edge. The swarm lies near the junction of the major Sierra Madre and San Jacinto Faults.

A magnitude-8.0 quake shook deep below the Amazon Rainforest in Peru, causing extensive liquefaction and shaking from Colombia to Chile.

A magnitude-7.5 quake broke the same fault that produced a magnitude-8.0 quake in 2000, an extraordinarily short recurrence time that also broke all our rules

An open invitation for researchers to use these remarkable Costa Rica quakes as a collaboration laboratory

While exact repeats of earthquakes are rare, if the 1906 quake did strike again, what will be our excuse for being so unprepared?

India is one of the countries with the most earthquake-related deaths. Just in the past century, over 100.000 people have died due to earthquakes in the country (Bilham, 2009)

The earthquake is surrounded by recent great quakes; whether one could strike here is uncertain

Japanese authorities declared the Jan 3 shock to be an independent event; we argue that it was a product of the 2016 quake, which profoundly changed the hazard.