25 September 2024–The five largest continental transform earthquakes since 2000 all originated on a branch of the main fault—and two researchers predict that the next great earthquake of this type will also get its start on a branch or splay fault. Last year’s magnitude 7.8 Pazarcık earthquake in Türkiye was … Continue Reading »
29 August 2024–About 21 million years ago the Yap Trench collided with a thick piece of ocean crust called the Caroline Plateau. But is the Yap Trench still an active subduction zone? And why does the Yap Trench look a little different from its subduction zone neighbors in the western … Continue Reading »
7 August 2024–Using data collected from a 2022 magnitude 6.8 earthquake in Luding County in China’s Sichuan Province, researchers tested whether Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observations could be used for rapid prediction of earthquake-triggered landslides. In their report in Seismological Research Letters, Kejie Chen of the Southern University of … Continue Reading »
13 March 2024–Seattle may have experienced its own Swift Quake last July, but at an August 2023 concert Taylor Swift’s fans in Los Angeles gave scientists a lot of shaking to ponder. After some debate, a research team led by Gabrielle Tepp of Caltech concluded that it was likely the … Continue Reading »
28 February 2024–An increasing number of seismologists are using fiber optic cables to detect seismic waves on Earth—but how would this technology fare on the Moon, and what would it tell us about the deep layers of our nearest neighbor in space? In Seismological Research Letters, Wenbo Wu of Woods … Continue Reading »
13 December 2023–Using questionnaires created to determine whether a particular earthquake is natural or induced by human activity, a panel of experts concluded that the November 2022 magnitude 5.2 Peace River earthquake sequence in Alberta, Canada was likely to be induced. The case study published in Seismological Research Letters was … Continue Reading »