The 1964 Alaska Earthquake was 9.2 in magnitude and caused dramatic destruction and dramatic examples of surface rupture, subsidence, and liquefaction. New paleoseismic evidence points to a previously unknown earthquake that happened on the same […]
A seismologist at the University of Tokyo believes that the monstrous tsunami that was responsible for so much damage and loss of life during the 2011 Fukushima earthquake may have been a result of a […]
Early Sunday morning, a 6.0 Magnitude earthquake struck near Napa California lasting 10 to 20 seconds, sending 120 people to the hospital and damaging buildings, breaking water mains, disrupting power distribution, and breaking gas lines […]
It’s been 50 years since the Magnitude 9.2 Great Alaskan Earthquake so dramatically altered people’s perceptions of the power of earthquakes. Check out this short video from the USGS: [Source: YouTube via AEG Insider. Image: […]
A magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck off the coast of Chile late Tuesday. The damage estimates will probably begin rolling in today, but early indications are that it could have been much worse. Some 5 people […]
The U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General released a scathing audit report on the troubled Port of Anchorage expansion project and the obscure federal agency that was supposed to be overseeing it, the Maritime Administration […]
In 2009, an unfortunate earthquake near L’Aquila, Italy caused the death of 309 people. The Italian authorities decided that a group of some six expert geoprofessionals were guilty of manslaughter for failing to predict the […]
Via @davely on Twitter.
A recent study concluded that three of four recently constructed segments of a new port facility in Anchorage, Alaska were not constructed correctly and even if they were, are vulnerable to liquefaction related damage during […]
On 22 October, 2012, an Italian court convicted six internationally respected scientists of manslaughter. The scientists Enzo Boschi, Giulio Selvaggi, Franco Barberi, Claudio Eva, Mauro Dolce, and Gian Michele Calvi have been sentenced to prison terms, barred from public office, and ordered to pay court costs and damages.
Their offense could have been avoided by precisely predicting the timing and nature of the tragic 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila. However, such precise, short-term earthquake prediction of the type evidently sought by L’Aquila is currently impossible. Because of the ungainly complexity of earthquake systems, knowledge of physical details is incomplete; the diverse expressions of earthquake processes deliver contradictory messages; and measurements of earthquake phenomena can be inaccurate. Glaringly, the indictment accused the scientists of having provided “incomplete”, “contradictory”, and “inaccurate” information.
[Editor] Click through for the rest of the press release from the GSA. [/Editor]
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