Scientists gather at UT to advance earthquake science | Jackson School of Geosciences

February 14, 2024

The University of Texas at Austin will host an international gathering of earthquake researchers focused on better understanding the conditions that cause earthquakes and the science behind when and where they occur.

The 1st International Earthquake Science Symposium will be held in Austin, Texas on February 15 and 16, 2024, bringing together researchers from the United States, Chile, Germany, and Japan. The United States, Chile, and Japan are home to some of the world’s largest earthquake faults.

Experts discuss promising advances in earthquake science, from nanoscale rock physics to placing sensors directly inside earthquake faults.

Demian Safer, director of the University of Texas Geophysical Institute (UTIG), which hosts the conference, said the symposium produced several important discoveries, many of which were led by UTIG research teams.

“The scientific community has made important advances in earthquake physics in recent years through the development of new computational models, laboratory experiments, and large-scale field programs that include imaging of epicenter areas and installing state-of-the-art monitoring equipment. “We have achieved that,” Safaa said. “By bringing together experts from around the world, we can share our collective progress and plan the next generation of international cooperation programs.”

After decades of research, scientists understand the general reasons why earthquakes occur, but they still don’t understand the complex forces that determine when and where earthquakes occur and exactly how strong they are. Is not … That’s why earthquakes, like the twin quakes that killed at least 55,000 people in Turkey and Syria in February 2022, remain largely unpredictable.

But progress has been made, such as recent work from UTIG that detected patterns of early warning foreshocks from man-made earthquakes created in the lab, and it would be a promising discovery if similar patterns were detected in nature. Other recent advances led by UTIG include new understanding of how rocks repair themselves after earthquakes and the discovery that seamounts can attenuate larger earthquakes. UTIG researchers are also leading large-scale collaborations with partners such as Japan, Chile, and Germany. Examples include the deepest ocean probe ever, the largest supercomputer-based imaging of an earthquake fault, and a National Science Foundation-funded collaboration to study the world’s largest earthquake fault. .

Thorsten Becker, a professor at the University of Texas Jackson School of Geosciences who co-organized the symposium and led the NSF project, said significant advances have been made in scientists’ ability to image and monitor earthquake faults. The next step, he said, is to develop a new generation of computer models that will allow researchers to interpret flood information and determine whether earthquake prediction is possible.

The first International Earthquake Science Symposium will be held at UT’s Pickles Research Campus and is open to all interested parties. Speakers and participants include researchers from the University of Texas, the University of California, Berkeley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Catholic University of Chile, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), and Germany’s GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Marine Research. Jamstek and Geomar are national marine and geophysical research centers in Japan and Germany.

For more information, including how to participate, please visit ig.utexas.edu/symposium-2024.

Utig is a research unit of the Jackson School of Geosciences.

For more information, contact: Anton Caputo, Jackson School of Geosciences, 210-602-2085; Konstantino Panagopoulos, University of Texas Geophysical Institute, 512-574-7376.