SM
Seismology

Earthquake

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]

Taking into account the cultural context to improve scientific communication – Lessons learned from earthquakes in Mayotte

March 8, 2019

by Laure Fallou and Rémy Bossu   Since 10th May 2018, a series of earthquakes has hit Mayotte Island, and it has not stopped yet. This seismic activity is very unusual in the area and has left not only the citizens, but also the authorities and the scientific community puzzled. Soon after the outset of the crisis one could observe the rise of a distrust atmosphere and of conspiracy theories.

Palu 2018 – Science and surprise behind the earthquake and tsunami

October 8, 2018

On September 28, 2018, a powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake and an unexpected tsunami shook the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, leaving behind catastrophic results and open questions among geoscientists. How come this event is having such an impact on the scientific community?   What we know so far On Friday afternoon (at around 5pm Western Indonesian Time) the Minahassa Peninsula on Sulawesi i ...[Read More]