Un monde de séismes

Type d’enseignement : Cours/TD/projet
Volume horaire : 30 h

Teachers: Romain Jolivet (ENS-PSL), Laurent Bollinger (CEA), Matthias Delescluse (ENS-PSL), Sylvain Michel (ENS-PSL), Christophe Vigny (ENS-PSL, CNRS)

Prerequisites: Notions of seismology. Notions of geology. Notions of geodesy. It is expected, but not mandatory, to have attended the Seismo-Tectonics class (M1 Geosciences).

Objectives: The objective of this class is to get a general knowledge of the seismic behavior in verious regions of the world. We will not spend much time on the physics of earthquakes but rather describe what we know of past earthquakes, potential for future earthquakes and the relationship with the geological history, the topography and sometimes the human societies impacted. The professors involved are all world-leading experts of the seismo-tectonics of these regions and classes will be partly based on their own work, partly based on a review of the literature.

Class summary: After a general introduction about earthquakes and fault dynamics in general, we will talk, in 2022-2023, about California, Turkey, Tibet, the Himalayas, Bolivia, Chile, the Pacific Northwest, New Zealand, Sumatra and Alaska. We will discuss large earthquakes, actives faults, field observations and models.

Organisation: The class will be based on 2-to-4 hour-long seminars from 11 am to 1 pm on Fridays. There will be no practicals.

Class requirements: To pass this class, you will have to build your own literature review on one of the many regions that we will not cover during the class. For instance, Japan, Italy, Greece, the Solomon Islands, Pakistan, Iran, the Levant fault system, etc, can be considered. You will have to choose between writing a 2 page-long essay or a 15 minutes presentation.

Class outline:

• Introduction by R. Jolivet (2h)

• the Himalayas by L. Bollinger (2h)

• Bolivia by L. Bollinger (2h)

• Chile by C. Vigny (4h)

• Alaska by M. Delescluse (2h)

• Sumatra by M. Delescluse (2h)

• the Pacific Northwest by S. Michel (2h) • New Zealand by S. Michel (2h)

• California by R. Jolivet (2h)

• North Anatolia by R. Jolivet (2h) 

• Tibet by R. Jolivet (2h)

• Preparation and presentations (4h)