The recent devastating earthquake in Haiti has focused attention on many things about that country, including politics, economics, its history and culture, and many other poignant topics, not the least of which is the safety and design of buildings there. 

Although a flash flood inundated most of Metro Manila, Central and North Luzon in the Philippines, recent earthquakes have shaken up the nation even more.

Bamboo, the flexible perennial grass, to the rescue

What do an exorcism and an earthquake have in common? What about attempted suicide and mud? Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick connects all these together.

Earthquakes don’t last long, but they can have long-lasting effects on both people and property. Is your workplace prepared?

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Bridges make travel faster and more convenient, but, in an earthquake, these structures are subject to forces that can cause extensive damage and make them unsafe. Now civil and environmental engineer Petros Sideris of Texas A&M University is leading a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research project to investigate the performance of hybrid sliding-rocking (HSR) columns. HSR columns provide the same support as conventional bridge infrastructure columns but are more earthquake-resistant. HSR columns are a series of individual concrete segments held together by steel cables that allow for controlled sliding and rocking. This allows the columns to shift without damage, while post-tensioning strands ensure that at the end of an earthquake the columns are pushed back to their original position. Conventional bridges are cast-in-place monolithic concrete elements that are strong but inflexible. Structural damage in these bridge columns, typically caused by a natural disaster, often forces a bridge to close until repairs are completed. But bridges with HSR columns can withstand large earthquakes with minimal damage and require minor repairs, likely without bridge closures. Such infrastructure helps with post-disaster response and recovery and can save thousands in taxpayer dollars. In an earthquake, HSR columns provide "multiple advantages to the public," Sideris said. "By preventing bridge damage, we can maintain access to affected areas immediately after an event for response teams to be easily deployed, and help affected communities recover faster. In mitigating losses related to post-event bridge repairs and bridge closures, more funds can be potentially directed to supporting the recovery of the affected communities." According to Joy Pauschke, NSF program director for natural hazards engineering, "NSF invests in fundamental engineering research so that, in the future, the nation's infrastructure can be more resilient to earthquakes, hurricanes, and other forces of nature."

Image credit: Texas A&M University

Hydraulic fracturing has a low risk for inducing earthquakes that can be felt by people, but underground injection of wastewater produced by hydraulic fracturing and other energy technologies has a higher risk of causing such earthquakes, says a new report from the National Research Council.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine says that enhancements to the geodetic infrastructure are needed to answer important questions about sea level rise, water resources, geological hazards, and more over the next decade.

According to a new study by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, a large earthquake on one fault can trigger large aftershocks on separate faults within just a few minutes. These findings have important implications for earthquake hazard prone regions like California where ruptures on complex fault systems may cascade and lead to mega-earthquakes.

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Fastmetrics, the Official Business Internet Service Provider of the San Jose Earthquakes and a leading B2B ISP, will be the presenting sponsor for their Major League Soccer match on Saturday, March 5 (2:30 p.m. PT).

Location: Electronic Resource- 

A pair of strong earthquakes has struck off the southern coast of Cuba, inflicting damage and causing landslides.

On March 10, 1933, a major earthquake caught the Los Angeles area by surprise. The devastation was of sufficient scale to spur scientific interest in earthquakes—and how to predict them.

Our host, Eric Schulze, explains how science is tackling this puzzling question from space.

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Semi-mythical "earthquake lights" may be accompanied by changes to Earth's magnetic field. Now researchers say these changes could be used to forecast major tremors

An analysis of GPS data has revealed a slow and otherwise undetectable slip of tectonic plates that begins two hours before an earthquake - but detecting this in advance would require more accurate sensors

Quartz crystals produce electricity when they are deformed by mechanical stress, which may explain how enormous chunks of gold can form in inert rock

A spike in earthquakes at Mount Adams, a volcano in Washington state, prompted scientists to install additional monitoring instruments to assess the seismic activity.

A mixture of crushed pieces of tyres and sand around the foundations can protect buildings during an earthquake, civil engineers say in a special release from the Indian Institute of Science.

Although a flash flood inundated most of Metro Manila, Central and North Luzon in the Philippines, recent earthquakes have shaken up the nation even more.

Where earthquakes are most likely to hit in Devon and Cornwall  Cornwall Live

The day Folkestone was rocked by one of Kent's worst ever earthquakes  Kent Live

Expert confirms true impact of earthquakes in Devon and Cornwall  Devon Live

Two earthquakes felt by residents in Lochaber  Press and Journal

Houses 'rattled' as minor earthquakes shake Shropshire  BBC News

'Surrey swarm' earthquakes not caused by nearby oil extraction, study suggests  Science Daily

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Bridges make travel faster and more convenient, but, in an earthquake, these structures are subject to forces that can cause extensive damage and make them unsafe. Now civil and environmental engineer Petros Sideris of Texas A&M University is leading a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research project to investigate the performance of hybrid sliding-rocking (HSR) columns. HSR columns provide the same support as conventional bridge infrastructure columns but are more earthquake-resistant. HSR columns are a series of individual concrete segments held together by steel cables that allow for controlled sliding and rocking. This allows the columns to shift without damage, while post-tensioning strands ensure that at the end of an earthquake the columns are pushed back to their original position. Conventional bridges are cast-in-place monolithic concrete elements that are strong but inflexible. Structural damage in these bridge columns, typically caused by a natural disaster, often forces a bridge to close until repairs are completed. But bridges with HSR columns can withstand large earthquakes with minimal damage and require minor repairs, likely without bridge closures. Such infrastructure helps with post-disaster response and recovery and can save thousands in taxpayer dollars. In an earthquake, HSR columns provide "multiple advantages to the public," Sideris said. "By preventing bridge damage, we can maintain access to affected areas immediately after an event for response teams to be easily deployed, and help affected communities recover faster. In mitigating losses related to post-event bridge repairs and bridge closures, more funds can be potentially directed to supporting the recovery of the affected communities." According to Joy Pauschke, NSF program director for natural hazards engineering, "NSF invests in fundamental engineering research so that, in the future, the nation's infrastructure can be more resilient to earthquakes, hurricanes, and other forces of nature."

Image credit: Texas A&M University

Hydraulic fracturing has a low risk for inducing earthquakes that can be felt by people, but underground injection of wastewater produced by hydraulic fracturing and other energy technologies has a higher risk of causing such earthquakes, says a new report from the National Research Council.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine says that enhancements to the geodetic infrastructure are needed to answer important questions about sea level rise, water resources, geological hazards, and more over the next decade.

Full Text:

Bridges make travel faster and more convenient, but, in an earthquake, these structures are subject to forces that can cause extensive damage and make them unsafe. Now civil and environmental engineer Petros Sideris of Texas A&M University is leading a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research project to investigate the performance of hybrid sliding-rocking (HSR) columns. HSR columns provide the same support as conventional bridge infrastructure columns but are more earthquake-resistant. HSR columns are a series of individual concrete segments held together by steel cables that allow for controlled sliding and rocking. This allows the columns to shift without damage, while post-tensioning strands ensure that at the end of an earthquake the columns are pushed back to their original position. Conventional bridges are cast-in-place monolithic concrete elements that are strong but inflexible. Structural damage in these bridge columns, typically caused by a natural disaster, often forces a bridge to close until repairs are completed. But bridges with HSR columns can withstand large earthquakes with minimal damage and require minor repairs, likely without bridge closures. Such infrastructure helps with post-disaster response and recovery and can save thousands in taxpayer dollars. In an earthquake, HSR columns provide "multiple advantages to the public," Sideris said. "By preventing bridge damage, we can maintain access to affected areas immediately after an event for response teams to be easily deployed, and help affected communities recover faster. In mitigating losses related to post-event bridge repairs and bridge closures, more funds can be potentially directed to supporting the recovery of the affected communities." According to Joy Pauschke, NSF program director for natural hazards engineering, "NSF invests in fundamental engineering research so that, in the future, the nation's infrastructure can be more resilient to earthquakes, hurricanes, and other forces of nature."

Image credit: Texas A&M University

Satellite data from the Torres Islands in the southwest Pacific suggest that rising sea-levels in the region widely attributed to climate change is also partly caused by sinking of the islands following earthquakes in the 1990s, according to recent research.

A recent overview and analysis shows that increasing amounts of gas drilling at Groningen, the largest gas field in Europe, led to a dramatic rise in regional earthquakes between 2001 and 2013. After a reduction in extraction was introduced by the Dutch Government, earthquake numbers started to fall. Statistical analysis reveals that if high extraction rates were resumed, about 35 earthquakes, with a magnitude (M) of over 1.5 on the Richter scale, might occur annually from the year 2021 onwards, including four with a damaging magnitude of over 2.5.

The number of earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater in the central and eastern US has increased significantly in recent years, from about 21 a year between 1967 and 2000, to over 300 between 2010 and 2012. Most of this increase seems to be linked to the deep injection of wastewater in underground wells, according to a recent review of seismic activity.

With groundwater pumping and the evaporation of heavy weights of water, Earth's crust rebounds. This movement affects the fault, causing earthquakes.

Earthquakes triggered by fluids injected deep underground, such as during the controversial practice of fracking, may be more common than previously thought, a

The risk of a deadly tsunami ravaging the United States is now leading scientists to investigate hazards posed by giant earthquakes off the Alaskan coast.

The Youngstown quakes were triggered by wastewater injection, scientists have discovered.

Science has finally discovered the answer to the centuries-old question of how to turn something into gold.

As Japan recovers from a massive earthquake, here's a look at why such tremors happen and where the next one might strike.

By Joel Bahr Berkeley News A new study co-authored by UC Berkeley professor Michael Manga confirms that earthquakes in America’s oil country — including a 4.8 magnitude quake that rocked Texas in 2012 — are being triggered by significant injections … Continue reading →

Big Ones deliver big lessons: Our best protection in disastrous times is community.

(Ohio State University) The land masses of Japan shifted from east to west to east again in the months before the strongest earthquake in the country's recorded history, a 2011 magnitude-9 earthquake that killed more than 15,500 people, new research shows.

Volcanoes.

Indonesia was rattled by more than 11 500 earthquakes last year, almost double the annual average of the past decade, according to the nation’s meteorological agency.

Undersea fibre-optic cables for transmitting data can also be used to detect earthquakes and find fault lines offshore

Free-floating observatories record seismic waves to help study Earth's interior.