New Zealand’s largest fault is a jumble of mixed-up rocks of all shapes, sizes, compositions and origins. According to research from a global team of scientists, this motley mixture could help explain why the fault generates slow-motion earthquakes known as “slow slip events” as well as destructive, tsunami-generating tremors. “One thing that really surprised […]
UTIG Seminar Notes: Kelly Olsen explains why some regions are more prone to powerful earthquakes than others
The final UTIG seminar of the Fall semester is reserved for graduate students to practice their presentations for AGU Fall. This year’s practice talks will be given by UTIG grad students Xian Wu, Kelly Olsen and Janaki Vamaraju. We asked each student to give us a sneak-preview into what they’ll be talking about and why […]
New NSF Grant Awarded to Study Earth’s “Flat Slabs”
A $2.7 million multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional NSF-Frontiers of Earth Science grant has been awarded to a team led by Carnegie’s Lara Wagner to study an active flat slab in Colombia. A flat slab is produced when a tectonic plate descends to depths of about 30 to 60 miles (~50-100 km) then flattens and travels horizontally for […]
UTIG researcher co-authors study on 2010 earthquake-icequake connection
University of Texas Institute for Geophysics Research Associate Jake Walter contributed to a published study examining the connection between the 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile in 2010 and micro-earthquakes in Antarctica, also known as “icequakes.” Walter was a postdoctorate researcher at Georgia Tech working at the time of the study with Zhigang Peng, an associate professor in […]
UTIG Researcher’s Article Featured in AGU Magazine
A recently published paper co-authored by Cliff Frohlich of the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics is featured in the May 20, 2014, edition of Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union. Frohlich and his co-authors published a paper in the January 2014 edition of Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth regarding the largest recorded earthquake in East […]