SM
Seismology

Earthquake

Earthquake of the month: Bengkulu – Indonesia M 6.8-6.9

September 16, 2020
Earthquake of the month: Bengkulu – Indonesia M 6.8-6.9
Focal mechanisms Credit: IPGP - SCARDEC

August was not highlighted by a large event (> M7) and the choice for the earthquake of the month was a bit tricky. Four events were available to choose from: An intraplate EQ in the US (M5.1), the largest event in this region since 1916, an M6.6 in the Philippines, a deep earthquake (~620 km) M6.9 in Indonesia, and a doublet earthquake (M6.8 – 6.9) in Indonesia. After some discussion, we ...[Read More]

Earthquake of the month: Simeonof – Alaska M 7.8

August 17, 2020
Earthquake of the month: Simeonof – Alaska M 7.8
Figure 1 | Recorded aftershocks two weeks after the M7.8 Simeonof earthquake (blue star). Yellow areas corresponds to historical earthquakes occurred along the Auletian trench. Credit: Alaska Earthquake Center (earthquake.alaska.edu)

On July 22nd, Alaska was the scene of last month’s largest earthquake, a Mw 7.8 earthquake that hit the Aleutian Islands, offshore the Alaska Peninsula. The hypocenter location, tectonic setting and focal mechanism suggest a megathrust earthquake. The hypocenter of the so called Simeonof earthquake is located at the western edge of the historical 1938 earthquake (M8.3) slip zone, near the Shumagin ...[Read More]

Ten years after the 2010 Maule earthquake: how science and ancestral knowledge build-up resilient societies

February 27, 2020
Ten years after the 2010 Maule earthquake: how science and ancestral knowledge build-up resilient societies
Tren Tren and Cai Cai Vilu, mythological beings of the Mapuche culture. Tren Tren Vilu is the terrestrial snake, who dominates the lands and take care of the nature spirits and Cai Cai Vilu the sea snake, who dominates the ocean and take care of the water spirits.

  At 3:34 a.m. (local time) on February 27, 2010, a magnitude Mw 8.8 earthquake occurred in Central Chile and extended over around 500 km along the Maule and Bio Bio regions, a convergent zone between the Nazca and South America plates (Figure 1a). The occurrence of this large earthquake in the context of active subduction zones, as Central Chile, was expected by many Chilean and European res ...[Read More]

How to improve rapid public earthquake information? Listen to eyewitnesses!

May 8, 2019

by Rémy Bossu, Laure Fallou, Sylvain Julien-Laferrière, Matthieu Landès, Julien Roch, Fréderic Roussel, Sébastian Soriat and Robert Steed I set the area of interest, and then tried to adjust the magnitude threshold. Either the threshold was too high and I did not get information for the earthquakes that I felt, or it was too low and I got tens of notifications a day for earthquakes that nobody not ...[Read More]