Category Archives: geohazards

In slow-moving hurricanes, the danger comes from all the water

Posted on September 1, 2012 by Anne Jefferson

When Hurricane Isaac passed over New Orleans as a Category 1 storm on the seventh anniversary of the disastrous Hurricane Katrina, everyone in the US let out a big sigh of relief. A category 1 storm, the lowest level of … Continue reading →

Categories: by Anne, geohazards, hydrology

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

Now that’s what I call a geomagnetic storm!

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Chris Rowan

It appears that I was a litte premature with yesterday’s post. Look at what happened to the ambient magnetic field at the two observatories at Boulder and Deadhorse today (the dotted line represents about where the plots I put up … Continue reading →

Categories: geohazards, geophysics, palaeomagic, planets