Strange Seismic Wave Arrivals Lead to Discovery of Overturned Slab in the Mediterranean

Map of seismic stations and the deep Granada earthquake. Red triangles indicate stations for studying the low velocity layer on the slab.

21 February 2024–Strange seismic wave arrivals from a 2010 earthquake under Spain were the clues that led to an unexpected discovery beneath the western Mediterranean: a subducted oceanic slab that has completely overturned. The waveforms paint a picture of a slab that descended rapidly into the Earth’s mantle and flipped … Continue Reading »

Earthquake Fatality Measure Offers New Way to Estimate Impact on Countries

Ruins of Pelileo in Ambato — after the 1949 Ambato earthquake in Ecuador

15 February 2024–A new measure that compares earthquake-related fatalities to a country’s population size concludes that Ecuador, Lebanon, Haiti, Turkmenistan, Iran and Portugal have experienced the greatest impact from fatalities in the past five centuries. The new impact measure, introduced in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America by … Continue Reading »

Q&A with TSR Editor-in-Chief Keith Koper

4 December 2023–As The Seismic Record nears its three-year anniversary, we asked Editor-in-Chief Keith Koper to talk about how the journal has evolved and what to expect next in its pages. SSA: The Seismic Record will celebrate its three-year anniversary in 2024. Why do you think the journal has been … Continue Reading »