Searching for Records of Past Earthquakes Under Water

Abstract

The 2004 Sumatra–Andaman Islands earthquake and tsunami highlighted the urgent need to better understand the long-term history of underwater earthquakes and tsunamis and to better define hazards for the significant populations in coastal areas. As a result, a European Science Foundation Research Conference was convened to review research in the rapidly expanding field of marine and lake paleoseismology. The 4-day-long meeting brought together scientists engaged in interdisciplinary research from paleoseismology and marine science. Sixty-six participants from 21 countries attended the conference, which took place at the Innsbruck University Centre, in Austria. The conference consisted of three main parts: (1) new techniques and results for on-fault and off-fault investigations, which summarized the most advanced marine methods for mapping, imaging, and dating underwater paleoseismic events; (2) case studies from different active tectonic continental margins, such as subduction zones, and from lakes or coastal environments that monitor tectonic systems; and (3) the contributions of marine and lake paleoseismology to seismic hazard assessment.