Category Archives: earthquakes

Friday Focal Mechanism: M 7.4, Oaxaca, Mexico

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Chris Rowan

The largest earthquake to hit the planet this week was in Mexico, which was shaken on Tuesday by a magnitude 7.4 earthquake. The epicentre was in the Oaxaca region about 300 kilometres southwest of Mexico city, and the rupture was … Continue reading →

Categories: earthquakes, focal mechanisms, geohazards

The humbling legacy of the Tohoku earthquake

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Chris Rowan

A year ago on Sunday, one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded ruptured the subduction megathrust that dips beneath the east coast of Japan. The rupture displaced the seafloor by tens of metres and generated tsunami waves up to 20 … Continue reading →

Categories: earthquakes, geohazards, tectonics

The soundtrack of our unquiet Earth

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Chris Rowan

I’ve coming down off an intense few weeks’ of travelling: first to this years’ ScienceOnline conference (some thoughts about which might appear here soon), then to a conference on Hawaii’s Big Island (which I’ll definitely be writing about), and then … Continue reading →

Categories: earthquakes

How I (mostly) slept through the one of the largest earthquakes to hit NW Europe in 200 years

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Chris Rowan

In the early hours of 13 April 1992, the border region in western Europe where Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands meet was shaken by a magnitude 5.4 earthquake, caused by northeast-southwest extension in the Roer Valley Graben. The shaking was … Continue reading →

Categories: academic life, earthquakes