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SUMMARY:Earthquakes of the Silk Road - Dr Richard Walker - University of O
 xford
DTSTART:20190315T150000Z
DTEND:20190315T153000Z
UID:TALK121249@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Ben Johnson
DESCRIPTION:Earthquakes are the primary source of information for understa
 nding how tectonic plate motions are accommodated by populations of active
  faults. They are also a major threat to a large part of the world’s pop
 ulation\, such that their scientific investigation is intrinsically linked
  to societal issues of hazard and vulnerability. Much of the world’s pop
 ulation lives in the continental interiors\, where deformation is spread a
 cross very wide regions\, and intervals between large earthquakes in one a
 rea are typically much longer than the 100 years of available instrumental
  data. The long recurrence intervals pose challenges for identification of
  active faults\, and the small database of recent large earthquakes limits
  our understanding of fault rupture processes in such regions. The solutio
 n is to supplement the modern record through forensic investigation of his
 toric and prehistoric events. In this talk I will describe our recent stud
 ies of some of the major earthquake disasters of the interior of Asia\, st
 arting from Xi’an in central China through to Anatolia. We start with th
 e 1556 Huaxian earthquake - the most destructive earthquake of all time 
 – and confirm that it is likely the largest known normal faulting earthq
 uake. \n\nMoving westwards\, we examine the complex multi-fault ruptures o
 f earthquakes that struck the northern Tien Shan in 1889 and 1911\; these 
 earthquakes are important in showing the ability of multiple short\, geolo
 gically minor faults to rupture together in large magnitude events. Iran h
 as a long record of destructive earthquakes\, with many examples from rece
 nt decades that have been studied using the full range of modern technique
 s available to us. I focus here on the faults of the Caspian lowlands\, wh
 ere there is an absence of earthquakes in the historical record\, and yet 
 the landscape suggests the occurrence of recent surface rupturing. Finally
 \, I end with the 2011 Van earthquake of eastern Turkey\, whose complexity
  is instructive in highlighting the challenges faced in interpreting the h
 istorical record of earthquakes from their expression in the landscape.\n\
 n_Richard Walker is a Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences\, Univ
 ersity of Oxford. He has a Ph.D. from Cambridge and has been at Oxford sin
 ce 2004\, first as a NERC post-doctoral fellow\, then as a Royal Society U
 niversity Research Fellow\, before becoming a full time staff member in 20
 12. His research interests range from forensic investigations of individua
 l earthquakes through to studies of the active tectonics of wide regions\,
  and he currently has collaborative research programs across large parts o
 f Central Asia. A particular focus of his recent work is in the study of t
 he ruptures of major historic and prehistoric earthquakes\, both to unders
 tand rupture processes in continental interiors\, and to aid assessments o
 f seismic hazard. In the period 2012-2018 this work was carried out within
  the ‘Earthquakes without Frontiers’ consortium\, and is now the focus
  of a new Leverhulme Trust project ‘The Earthquake Ruptures of Iran and 
 Central Asia’. As well as his work in active tectonics\, he also maintai
 ns interests in past climatic and environmental changes in the arid lands 
 of Iran\, and in the geomorphic imprint of processes in the lower crust an
 d mantle._\n
LOCATION:Tilley Lecture Theater\, Department of Earth Sciences
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