lecture 14: geohazards 1

geohazards

an adverse geological condition capable of causing widespread damage or loss of property and life

seismicity

occurrence of frequency of earthquakes in a region

distribution of earthquakes

mainly at plate boundaries → grinding against each other

Zagreb Earthquake

• Magnitude 5.5

• 5:24 UTM, 22/3/2020 

• 1 death  

• 27 injured  

• Many displaced 

Amatrice town, Italy

• Magnitude 6.2

• August 2016 at 3:36 local time 

• 299 deaths  

• 400 injured  

• 4500 homeless 

Turkey-Syria

• MAin earthquake Magnitude 7.8

• 6/2/2023 1:17 UTC 

• Another M 7.7 at 10:24 UTC 

• Strike-slip movement on East Anatolian Fault 

• Shallow hypocentre (10km) - lots of damage  

• Maximum slip on fault 11.2m  

• 30,000 aftershocks within next 3 months  

• Largest earthquake in areas since 1939 

• 53,537 deaths in Turkey, 6,000 – 8,500 in Syria 

  > deadliest earthquake worldwide since 2010 Haiti M 7.0 earthquake 

  > fifth deadliest earthquake worldwide in the 21st century 

• 1.5 million people were left homeless (UN), 14 million people affected 

linear system for prediction

output directly proportional to input

Non-linear system for prediction

output not proportional to inputs

→ difficult to predict

is earthquake predicrion possible

deterministic prediction not very possible

probabilistic forecasting possible