Earthquake lights

A very interesting article about earthquake lights has been published in this month Seismological Research Letters. Earthquake lights are an aerial phenomenon when unusual light is seen just above the ground or high up in the sky before and/or during an earthquak. Mysterious lights in the sky have been a sensation ever since but their appearance has long had baseless explanations suggesting either mythical beliefs and  fictional theories such as visiting aliens. This new publication catalogues a list of reported earthquake lights and finds that glows happen most often in geological rift environments, where the ground is pulling apart. As expected  this article has attracted strong interest of various media worldwide including: Nature, National Geographic, Sci-News, iScienceTimes, and many others.

Here are some interesting footage of earthquake lights on YouTube:

Japan 7.4 M Earthquake:

30 mins before the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China

Peru earthquake

Webcam interview: Philipp Kempf

This week we interview Philipp Kempf, a 28 years old PhD student at the Renard Centre of Marine Geology at Ghent University in Belgium. His research focuses on paleo-tsunami deposits within coastal lakes with a special focus at the Chilean coast. Philipp Kempf is the winner of the 2013 Outstanding Student Poster Award for the poster entitled: 1960 Valdivia earthquake tsunami deposits from two coastal lakes and preliminary results for an extended paleo-tsunami record of south-central Chile.

Watch the full interview

Happy new year, EGU deadline

Happy new year !

After all the extra food and booze the holidays bring along, many by now would have returned back to their desks planing the new year targets and deadlines. First on the list is probably the EGU abstract submission deadline on the Thursday 16 January, 13:00 CET.

A session you might find of interest is SM1.7/EOS17: Seismological and Geophysical Apps. This session focuses on the use of mobile phones and computer tablets in the educational and scientific fields. If you already make use of such devices for your research you are invited to submit an abstract and share your experience during the session.