Advancing earthquake science worldwide
5 March 2025 — A new seismic study of Singapore could guide urban growth and renewable energy development in the coastal city nation, where 5.6 million residents live within an area of 734 square kilometers. The study, published in Seismological Research Letters, identifies areas with increased risk of ground shaking and … Continue Reading »
22 January 2025—Gather around, and let Susan Hough tell you the tale of the Summerville Light. Legend has it that the strange orb sometimes seen hovering over the railroad tracks in the remote area around Summerville, South Carolina is a lantern borne by a ghost whose husband lost his head … Continue Reading »
10 January 2025—Using an existing telecommunications fiber optic cable running along the sea floor, researchers identified faults and tracked the locations of whales traveling up and down the central California coast. Their study, published in Seismological Research Letters, demonstrates the potential of distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) for visualizing the geohazards … Continue Reading »
11 December 2024–Military vehicles rumbling toward the presidential palace, bombs dropped by the Chilean Air Force, and an eerie quiet descending over Santiago after a curfew imposed by a military junta—a lone seismometer captured all these features of the 1973 Chilean coup d’état. In Seismological Research Letters, Sergio León-Rios of … Continue Reading »
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 »