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21 December 2018
Landslide probability may depend more on riverside steepness than on hillsides above
On April 25, 2015, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake stuck the Gorkha region of Nepal near the capital city of Kathmandu. Approximately 9,000 people died and more than 22,000 suffered injuries. The quake also triggered more than 20,000 landslides in the surrounding area. A team of scientists at the University of Southern California is studying how the topography of the Melamchi Valley in Gorkha affected the incidence of landslides after the 2015 earthquake.
19 November 2018
Oil extraction likely triggered mid-century earthquakes in Los Angeles
Six independent earthquakes and two aftershocks of magnitude 4.4 to 5.1 shook LA between 1935 and 1944, a rate of about one every two years. A new study re-examined historical information about the earthquakes from archived damage reports to refine the earthquake locations identified by early earth-motion sensors, placing them closer to many active oil fields.
22 October 2018
Quiescent British Columbia fault capable of producing large earthquakes
A Canadian fault scientists thought was inactive may actually be capable of producing large-magnitude earthquakes, a new study finds.
12 June 2018
South Napa Earthquake linked to summer groundwater dip
A summertime expansion in the Earth’s crust caused by changes in groundwater may have triggered the magnitude-6.0 earthquake in California’s wine country in 2014, according to a new study.
8 February 2018
New Hayward Fault earthquake simulations increase fidelity of ground motions
Scientists have used some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers to model ground shaking for a magnitude (M) 7.0 earthquake on the Hayward Fault and show more realistic motions than ever before.
5 December 2017
Dark fiber: Using sensors beneath our feet to tell us about earthquakes, water and other geophysical phenomena
Scientists have shown for the first time that dark fiber – the vast network of unused fiber-optic cables installed throughout the country and the world – can be used as sensors for detecting earthquakes, the presence of groundwater, changes in permafrost conditions, and a variety of other subsurface activity.
30 August 2017
Computer earthquake prediction in lab shows promise
By listening to the acoustic signal emitted by a laboratory-created earthquake, a computer science approach using machine learning can predict the time remaining before the fault fails. Not only does the work have potential significance to earthquake forecasting, but the approach is far-reaching, applicable to potentially all failure scenarios, including avalanches and other events.
7 August 2017
New study details earthquake, flood risk for Eastern European, Central Asian countries
How will future disasters affect countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia? Researchers aiming to answer this question used projected changes in population and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 33 countries, along with climate, flood and earthquake risk models, to estimate how each country is affected by flooding and earthquakes now and in the future. In addition, the earthquake model was used to estimate fatalities and capital losses from a strong quake.
19 May 2017
New technique provides earthquake risk for major cities worldwide
Scientists have developed snapshots of the likelihood of major earthquakes occurring in megacities around the world using a new statistical approach for estimating earthquake risk. The new technique, called seismic nowcasting, estimates the progress of a defined seismically-active geographic region through its repetitive cycle of major earthquakes.
1 May 2017
Study of historic Chilean quake warns of a future tsunami
The most populated central region of Chile could be vulnerable to large tsunamis generated by a deceptively moderate kind of earthquake that might be overdue, say scientists who have sorted out the source of an earthquake and tsunami that struck the area 287 years ago. The region is the same that trembled from a magnitude 6.9 earthquake on April 24.
GeoSpace is a blog on Earth and space science, managed by AGU’s Public Information staff. The blog features posts by AGU writers and guest contributors on all sorts of relevant science topics, but with a focus on new research and geo and space sciences-related stories that are currently in the news.