EGU Seismology Division

Hey fellow seismologists! Don’t miss out our annual division meeting at tomorrow at 12:45pm! You’ll find out more about the things happening in the Seismology Division and make connections with other . Mark your calendar and join the meeting!

📅 Wed April 17th
🕐 12:45 CEST
📍Austria Center Vienna, Room D2

🚨Don't miss this at ! 🚨

Attend the division medal & outstanding ECS award lectures and celebrations tomorrow at 19:00 CEST!

📅 Wednesday April 16th
🕐 12:45 CEST
📍Austria Center Vienna, Room D2

Hey fellow seismologists, are you an Scientist attending ? Join us on Tuesday evening for the EGU-wide ECS Networking & Careers Reception! No registration is required but the amount of people is limited on a first come, first serve basis, so don't be late!

📅 Tuesday April 16th
🕐 18:00 CEST
📍Austria Center Vienna, Rooftop Foyer

New to seismology or need to refresh your knowledge of seismology? Join our Seismology 101 short course on Tuesday at ! We’ll take you through the basics, from earthquake detection to subsurface imaging. So mark your calendar now and see you there 😉

📅 Wednesday April 16th
🕐 12:45 CEST
📍Austria Center Vienna, Room N2

Don't forget about the opening reception for on Sunday evening!

📅 Sunday April 14th
🕐 18:30 CEST
📍Austria Center Vienna, Foyer F

Hello fellow seismologists, join us on Sunday afternoon for this year’s joint pre-EGU GA BYO to connect with each other before the start of ! The sun will be out, which cannot be said for the rest of the week, so seize this opportunity! All you have to do is bring yourself, a drink and/or a snack and start connecting! See you there 😊

📅 Sunday April 14th
🕐 15:00 CEST
📍CopaBeach, Vienna

Join us on Wednesday evening during for the ECS social dinner . This will be a perfect opportunity for you to meet/reconnect with your fellow ECSs. You will also meet the ECS Team and hear about all our work and activities. Seats are limited! So sign up now!

📅 Wednesday April 17th
🕐 19:00 CEST
📍 Bier und Bierli, Vienna
🔗 In stories and here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfedrFieiGFNCwzwnQedtVaEa77m2gXyXcHc4LsMEXVxa8SGQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

🚨 New seismo blog alert! 🚨

The Reykjanes Peninsula in southwest Iceland experienced six volcanic eruptions in the last three years. In November 2023, the town of Grindavík, home to 4000 people, had to be evacuated due to the formation of a new magmatic d**e. Subsequently, three brief eruptions, spaced approximately four weeks apart, followed. Lava flows from the last two eruptions destroyed several houses and severely damaged infrastructure, including the main road leading to town.

Join us as we delve into the seismic activity surrounding these recent events in Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula. We're honored to feature Yesim Cubuk-Sabuncu. She obtained her Ph.D. in Geophysical Engineering at the Istanbul Technical University, Turkey in 2016. Since 2019, she is working as a postdoctoral researcher in seismology at the Icelandic Meteorological Office's Service and Research Division and can provide us with a unique insight in the seismicity surrounding the recent eruptions at the Reykjanes Peninsula.

https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/sm/2024/02/13/eq-watch-seismicity-reykjanes-iceland/

Time to vote for the best EGU Division blog in 2023!

Each year the EGU Division blogs create hundreds of fantastic posts sharing information and ideas from all aspects of - and each year you get to vote for your favourite!! Visit the now and pick your best blog post of 2023!

VOTE: https://egu.eu/62PA33/

On the first of 2024, let's take a look back at all the global large (M≥6) of 2023!

Last year, there were 149 earthquakes with a moment magnitude greater than or equal to 6, and 19 of them were magnitude 7 and above.

Can you guess how many large earthquakes there will be by the end of 2024?

Figure is produced by ECS Representative Foivos Karakostas using (https://github.com/foivoskar/pyGCMT)

New Seismo Blog Post Alert 🚨

With this article, authors Richard Kramer, Charlotte Bruland, Laura Ermert, Yang Lu, and Steffen Birk would like to draw your attention to an exciting topic and their session Hydro-Seismology: Seismic Insights into Water Resources in the Context of Climate Change!

Check out EGU24 Session SM5.3: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU24/session/50235

Hydro-Seismology: New perspectives on the water cycle in the context of climate change. With this article, authors Richard Kramer, Charlotte Bruland, Laura Ermert, Yang Lu and Steffen Birk would like to draw your attention to an exciting topic and their EGU 24 session Hydro-Seismology: seismic insights into Water Resources in the context of climate change !   Critical Resource – The...

It’s Christmas day 🥳 Merry Christmas from the EGU Seismology ECS Representatives! We hope you enjoyed our ! Wishing you all the best this holiday season 🎄

We’d like to extend our warmest regards and gratitude to our seismologist colleagues on duty this Christmas Day. Your dedication to monitoring the Earth's seismic activity, even during the holiday season, is a vital service to science and society!

🕯 Advent Day 24: Today on the last 🍝 let’s learn about some basics of rotational seismology! Check out the latest short blog post written by our ECS representative Andreas Brotzer.

Read the blog here ⬇️
https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/sm/2023/12/23/rotational-seismology-in-short/

For more information on the rotational seismology community check out: https://www.rotational-seismology.org/ For event data, visit: https://rotations-database.geophysik.uni-muenchen.de/

We wish you a happy and 4th Advent! 🕯🕯🕯🕯

🕯 Advent Day 23: What can and can’t be done with statistical earthquake forecasting? Today on , we are happy to have it explained by Dr. Leila Mizrahi, a postdoctoral researcher at the Swiss Seismological Service (SED) at ETH Zürich.

🔗Revisit the blog via the link below ⬇️
https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/sm/2023/09/25/statistical-earthquake-forecasting-is-that-possible-lm/

🕯 Advent Day 22: Sometimes the field can look a little different, in the form of an outreach event. Seismological outreach events can be interactive and engaging 💃 as we found out at multiple events throughout the year. We loved meeting members of the public and discussing all things seismological. Today on , our ECS representative Laura Reilly from DIAS shares some outreach activities from earlier this year:

As part of the Irish Summer School back in May, the PhD students were tasked with organising a Volcano Open Day and they really erupted to the challenge 🙌 A wide variety of experiments were displayed 🔬 (8 in total): making own earthquakes with a Raspberry Shake seismometer 🏃‍♂️ (Video 1), an indoor and outdoor erupting volcano 🌋 (Video 2 and Picture 2), “Would your structure survive an earthquake?” (Picture 2), a cross-section of a volcano (Picture 3), hydrothermal vents with musical instruments (Picture 4), and much more!

and the Irish Geological Association organised an incredible journey through time with the Rock N Shake Adventure as the thrilling world of earthquakes was mixed with the fascinating realm of minerals and fossils. This event was part of Irish Heritage Week and Wild Child Day so many families were in attendance to learn about how earthquakes are monitored all over the globe and to see the real-life ‘fossilised 🦖💩’ (Pictures 5 and 6).

We can't wait for more outreach events in 2024!

🕯 Advent Day 21: Almost 5 years ago, on December 22nd, 2018, the eruption of reached its peak when a violent explosion and the subsequent collapse of the volcano's southwest flank triggered a devastating tsunami. Anak Krakatoa emerged from the caldera formed by the catastrophic eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, one of the most violent volcanic events in recorded history. The name "Anak Krakatoa" means "Child of Krakatoa" in . The island first appeared above sea level in 1927 and has grown steadily due to ongoing volcanic activity. The eruption was preceded by months of increased volcanic activity, including frequent ash emissions and lava flows.

The explosion itself was colossal, sending ash and smoke several kilometers into the sky. A seismogram from the closest station (CGJI), located 64 km from Anak Krakatau, shows the occurrence of a high-frequency event (1) 115 s before the sector collapse (2). The spectrogram reveals that the collapse is a 1–2-min-long low-frequency signal presumably related to the landslide, followed by ~5 mins of strong emissions at high frequencies (Walter et al., 2019). This landslide, consisting of a significant portion of the volcano, was estimated to be about 64 hectares in size. The massive landslide was the primary cause of the tsunami, a rare and deadly phenomenon resulting from volcanic activity rather than the more typical seismic activity.

Tsunami waves reached an elevation of 85 m at neighboring Rakata Island, 4 km away, and hit the populated coasts of northwest Java and southern Sumatra 30-60min later, resulting in the tragic loss of 437 lives. Ultimately, 2 cubic km of material was lost from the island, collapsing the 328 m volcanic cone into a crater opening into the ocean and decreasing the height of the island by 200 m.

🕯 Advent Day 20: For today's , we are excited to introduce : a newly launched citizen seismology outreach programme launched by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) and Geological Survey Ireland (GSI). The programme is running using seismometers (Picture 2). A Raspberry Shake is a professional-grade seismograph that anyone can use to record and visualize both natural and human seismic activity, capturing data in real time. It can record of all magnitudes. From the vanishingly small blips that are imperceptible to human senses, to the big destructive earthquakes that regularly occur around the world 🌍

Dive into the seismic world with us on our awesome new website link in the bio - your go-to for all things earthquake-related! Read about earthquakes and seismic waves, stay updated on recent earthquakes, and don't miss out on the interactive quiz! 🌐📲

Follow Quake Shake's social media pages to keep up to date on all the latest news and events on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube!

🔗 Check out Quake Shake website via the link below ⬇️
https://quakeshake.ie/

🕯 Advent Day 19: Earthquakes don’t just happen on Earth. Technically, EARTHquakes do, but there are also and . We mentioned moonquakes in our last post, and now let’s revisit our interview with Géraldine Zenhäusern, a PhD student at ETH Zurich’s Department of Earth Sciences, sharing her experience on the frontline of spotting marsquakes with NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration's mission.

🔗Revisit the blog via the link below ⬇️
https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/sm/2023/01/16/marsquakes-intro/

🕯 Advent Day 18: Ever wondered how new text-to-image generative models (like DALL-E) work? Would you have guessed the same tools can be used to clean up seismic data? Find some inspiration on today’s as we introduce a new blog post: “Seismic Denoising meets Generative Image Models.” Join us for a whirlwind tour of generative models in Machine Learning and a showcase of the work of Daniele Trappolini, Sapienza Università di Roma, who has been using these models for seismic data denoising.

Check out the latest blog via the link below ⬇️
https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/sm/2023/12/18/seismic-denoising-meets-generative-image-models/

🕯 Advent Day 17: Happy 🍝 Today, let's explore how soil types influence the way we experience .

Have you ever wondered why some areas feel stronger shaking than others, despite similar distances from the epicenter? The answer lies in the soil beneath our feet. In simple terms, seismic waves travel differently through various materials. Hard, rocky bedrock efficiently transmits waves, resulting in high-frequency, low-amplitude waves that are less destructive. On the other hand, soft soils like clay or silt create low-frequency, high-amplitude waves, leading to more destructive shaking. Understanding soil types is crucial for urban planning and construction, guiding engineers and city planners in creating safer structures. Seismic Hazard maps, which consider soil types, help design buildings that can withstand strong earthquakes.

Now, let's talk about soil – a dramatic effect of earthquakes. When intense shaking occurs in water-saturated, loose soil, the ground can lose its strength and behave like a liquid. The intense shaking increases the pressure in the water between the soil particles, causing the soil to flow like a liquid. It's a startling transformation with serious consequences, as it can lead to the collapse of buildings and infrastructure. How often do we see it? This transformation is usually seen in moderate to large earthquakes (think M6 or greater) and poses a risk closer to the epicenter where shaking is strongest. As you move away, the risk decreases, but within tens of kilometers from the epicenter, it remains a concern in strong earthquakes.

Watch the video of EarthScope Consortium to learn more ⬇️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=536xSZ_XkSs

We wish you a happy 3rd Advent! 🕯🕯🕯

🕯 Advent Day 16: Have you ever visited the Hawaii of Europe? Here is your chance! At the beginning of this year, we had Will Sturgeon, a postdoc from UCL, telling us about an emergency station deployment initiative as a response to the 2022 seismic swarm on São Jorge in the Azores. This post gives a nice overview of the setting, as well as challenges with station deployment.

🔗Revisit the blog via the link below ⬇️
https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/sm/2023/01/09/azores-seismic-deployment-2022/

🕯 Advent Day 15: It’s ! Today, there are no volcanoes or epic glaciers, but tunnels! Switzerland is home to 3 underground labs, and our ECS representative Katinka Tuinstra from ETH Zürich has been to two of them:

The first lab is the Mont Terri laboratory (photo 1-2), situated in the Jura Mountains in the north of Switzerland. The tunnel runs through the Opalinus clay formation, including a fault zone. Many experiments are conducted in this gigantic lab, but I assist with an experiment where we inject CO2 into the fault zone and try to detect seismic wave velocity changes with active seismics and DAS running through the surrounding boreholes. These velocity changes can tell us something about the effect the injected CO2 has in the rock and fault zone and are used for research into the potential of CO2 storage. Similar experiments are also conducted in geothermal energy research.

The second photo is from the Bedretto lab (photo 3-4), located in Ticino in southern Switzerland. Here, I help monitor injection experiments by using DAS in the surrounding boreholes. It's similar but uses passive seismics instead of active!

The tunnel environment is interesting: there is no daylight and you lose track of the day, but you are right inside the bedrock of interest! And when you walk out at the end of a long day, you are greeted by beautiful mountain views!

🕯 Advent Day 14: Today, on , let's take a look back at the first scientific instrument ever deployed by humankind on a world other than our planet! The first successful deployment of a seismometer outside of our planet occurred during the Apollo 11 mission. This 'great leap for humanity' not only revolutionized space exploration but also opened the doors to the interior of another world.

The first humans to set foot on the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, installed the first seismometer on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969. This instrument, part of the Passive Seismic Experiment (PSE), consisted of a tri-axis long-period seismometer (LP) and one vertical short-period seismometer (SP), with resonance periods of 15 seconds and 1 second, respectively. It weighed 11.5 kg and consumed 4.3-7.4 W of power. During its approximately 21-day lifetime, it recorded meteorite impacts and , registering about 4 hits by meteorites per day.

The successful installation of the seismometer by the crew of the mission paved the way for the inclusion of a better, nuclear-powered seismic station by the subsequent Apollo missions that successfully reached the (Apollo 12, 14, 15, and 16). This set of instruments remained operational for more than 6 years until September 1977 when all were turned off after commands from Earth.

Photo credits: NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

🕯 Advent Day 13: On this , we would like to highlight , which stands for Remote Online Sessions for Emerging Seismologists. It is a virtual learning program initiated in 2020 by the American Geophysical Union's Seismology Section (). Designed primarily for graduate students in seismology, it comprises a series of interactive online sessions delivered via Zoom, coupled with Python notebooks for hands-on learning. The program covers a range of seismology topics, presented by field experts, and offers opportunities for participants to engage in exercises and network with fellow seismologists globally.

The course includes weekly sessions featuring lectures and lab sessions that apply lecture principles using Jupyter notebooks. Topics covered include data analysis, waveform correlation, array seismology, and machine learning, among others. ROSES aims to provide a comprehensive educational experience in seismology, enhancing both knowledge and professional connections in the field.

Check out ROSES via the link below ⬇️
https://www.iris.edu/hq/inclass/course/roses

🕯 Advent Day 12: Ever wondered how seismic sensors on 's fastest glacier are deployed? And how fieldwork is conducted in remote Greenlandic areas? On this , let’s revisit this blog written by our ECS representative Ana Nap, who is a PhD student at the University of Zurich (.ch) researching glacier ice flow dynamics through seismic data. Doing fieldwork in a remote place in Greenland has its challenges, but it also provides the opportunity for adventurous and cool deployments and of course amazing photos.

🔗Revisit the blog via the link below ⬇️
https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/sm/2023/02/13/sensor-greenland-geophones/