Abstract

We are frequently surprised by earthquakes that occur in unexpected places and at un-‘predicted’ times. Some faults seem to have fairly regular earthquakes, particularly at plate boundaries, but many do not. In this seminar, we will explore how and why earthquakes reoccur in time and space. I will present how landscape processes interact with tectonics, and how this impacts on the expression of active faulting preserved on Quaternary timescales. We will then delve into the methods that can be applied to quantify fault slip on millennial timescales, using cosmogenic data from normal faults in western Turkey and Central Italy. These data are rarely straightforward, but we will begin to understand how complex faulting (or not) can be inferred, and how data from the past can inform our understanding of the pattern of faulting and the likelihood of future devastating events.