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This paper describes the results achieved within the framework of the national research project Reduction of the Seismic Vulnerability of Infrastructural Systems and Physical Environment, sponsored by the GNDT (Italian National Group for Defense Against Earthquakes), which is a body of the INGV (Italian Geophysic and Volcanology National Institute). The project, which involved several Universities around Italy under the coordination of Prof. Michele Calvi of the University of Pavia, was carried out over three years and has been just completed in July 2004. The aim of the project was to study the problems related to the seismic vulnerability assessment both of the physical environment and the infrastructural systems, to develop new techniques and tools, or improve the existing ones, to provide an efficient reduction of the risk. One of the products of the project is the Web GIS, described in this paper, which has been applied to a test area in the South of Italy which in the past has suffered high seismic level events, to prove its efficiency and to examine the possibility of its implementation at national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural pounding during earthquakes is a complex phenomenon involving plastic deformations, local cracking, etc. The aim of the present paper is to check the accuracy of three pounding force numerical models, such as: the linear viscoelastic model, the non-linear elastic model following the Hertz law of contact and the non-linear viscoelastic model. In the analysis, the results of numerical simulations have been compared with the results of an impact experiment conducted by dropping balls of different building materials. The results of the study indicate that the non-linear viscoelastic model is the most precise one in simulating the pounding force time history during impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Turkey, mitigation works have been given more importance since the 1999 Gulf earthquake. The first drafted projects put forth for Istanbul are the seismic microzonation and earthquake risk assessment projects. However, the fundamental plan which provided a ground for thorough assessment deducted from the mentioned projects as well as a road-map for mitigation is the Earthquake Master Plan. YTU (Yildiz Technical University) settlement and urban planning team have been faced some difficulties for risk assessment and priorities, during the IEMP (Istanbul Earthquake Master Plan) project. Therefore, some processes related to spatial decisions such as definition of priority areas were applied just for highly macro level. Risk priority areas could not be determined due to the lack of necessary information. The team has developed a new zoning approach for risk zoning based on density, pattern and other properties according to the requirements of previous projects with the contribution of BU (Boğaziçi University) project team. In this paper, existing GIS contents of risk maps and other information as the most essential component of the mitigation phase of disaster management, new zoning approach developed by YTU-BU teams during the IEMP project and possible results are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents several educational activities about volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and geysers.

KTIMATOLOGIO S.A. developed the HEllenic POsitioning System (HEPOS) for facilitating the establishment of the National Cadastre in Greece. HEPOS is a modern RTK-network consisting of 98 permanent GPS reference stations distributed throughout Greece. Like in any other RTK-network, the coordinates of the reference stations must be estimated with high accuracy, on the order of 1 cm. This requirement is a great challenge for HEPOS, due to the strong geodynamic effects taking place in Greece. Besides the slow displacements caused by the individual velocities of the different tectonic plates, abrupt displacements may occur as a result of strong earthquakes. During the first months of the operation of HEPOS, several strong earthquakes (ML >6.0) with different characteristics took place in certain areas of Greece. By post-processing and analyzing GPS observations of the reference stations of HEPOS, it was proved that some earthquakes have detectable effects on the positions of the reference stations. The paper describes the methodology that has been used for revealing these effects as well as the results that have been obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents (i) catalogues of Vrancea earthquakes (ii) past strong earthquakes, (iii) earthquake records in Romania, (iv) the evolution of seismic zonation and seismic design codes, (v) a seismic hazard map of Romania and design spectra in the new seismic design code P100-1/2006 following the Eurocode 8 format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents (i) historical earthquake damage and lessons learned (ii) how to strengthen tall reinforced concrete fragile buildings in central Bucharest, (iii) international projects for seismic risk reduction in Romania and (iv) the current challenges involved in conserving historical buildings in the center of Bucharest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the 5th international conference of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) 588 and fieldtrip guide. Topics discussed include a brief overview of Alaska, the Turnagain heights and fourth avenue landslides, and crustal deformation studies within the 1964 Alaska earthquake rupture zone, and portage garage and area of maximum coseismic submergence.

In general analyses of earthquakes often only the vulnerability of surface installations is considered, without subsurface installations. But in the last decades, insurance assessments of losses due to earthquake catastrophes showed the need for a more detailed assessment of vulnerability to earthquakes. Therefore it is also necessary to precisely understand the exposure of subsurface installations. Research results identified the possibility of a categorisation and classification of damage to surface and subsurface installations of mines related to tectonic earthquakes. Collapses have the biggest impact for underground structures, whereas the surface installations suffer from damage to buildings and their contents. An interesting feature is the link between surface and subsurface damage scenarios. This leads to extensive economic loss, which could influence a whole region. The transposition of the loss scenarios to the German Mining industry indicated only a minor vulnerability. This is due to lower earthquake intensities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stand still you ever-moving spheres of heaven, that time may cease, and midnight never come. There is broad scientific agreement that the Universe came into existence about 13 700 000 000 years ago, as a result of the largest-ever explosion. In the briefest of instants, the explosion created all the matter and energy that has ever existed, and although matter and energy are interconvertible, as Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity tells us, their sum has remained constant ever since. Fred Hoyle referred to this cataclysmic event as the big bang – facetiously in fact, because he advocated the now-defunct rival idea of continuous creation. In 1948, Hoyle, Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold had put forward the idea that the Universe is in a steady state, that it had no beginning, and that it will have no end. There is now strong evidence that the big bang did take place, as first surmised by Georges Lemaître in 1927, and thus that the Universe certainly did have a beginning. It remains a moot point, however, as to whether it will have an end. One might speculate as to what was present in the cosmos before the primordial explosion, but Stephen Hawking has argued that such a question would be incorrectly posed, and therefore futile. According to his theory, the big bang created time itself, and it thus coincided with what could be called a pole in time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Benchmark studies were carried out on a recently optimized parallel 3D seismic wave propagation code that uses finite differences on a staggered grid with 2nd order operators in time and 4th order in space. Three dual-core supercomputer platforms were used to run the parallel program using MPI. Efficiencies of 0.91 and 0.48 with 1024 cores were obtained on HECToR (UK) and KanBalam (Mexico), and 0.66 with 8192 cores on HECToR. The 3D velocity field pattern from a simulation of the 1985 Mexico earthquake (that caused the loss of up to 30000 people and about 7 billion US dollars) which has reasonable agreement with the available observations, shows coherent, well developed surface waves propagating towards Mexico City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mediterranean is not the most seismic region on the globe but is very complicated as it involves a number of small oceanic basins and micro-blocks. Understanding, even partially, the very different earthquake mechanisms requires fine studies in the fields and is essential for taking appropriate measures. Some examples such as the Marmara sea are somewhat developed in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The risks posed by volcanoes are generally less significant than those posed by earthquakes, but they must be studied carefully to prevent their effect: lava flow, pyroclastic flows in explosive eruptions, lahars or mud flows if ice and snow cover the top of the volcano, fall-out of ashes and tsunamis. The case of Vesuvius is examined in more details, as this is the one presenting the highest level of risks in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a lesson plan for primary education which teaches concepts about composition of Earth related to earthquakes using activity and reading. The activity includes simulating earthquakes by making model houses using toothpicks and glue. Earthquakes occur due to grinding of Earth's crust plates causing vibrations.

This job shows the experience of the office “Servizio Sismico Nazionale” (OSSN - Italian Department of Civil Protection), started in the 1992, to build up the complex information system: SIGE. SIGE, that utilizes a lot of integrated technologies to support the seismic emergency management: G.I.S., G.P.S., G.P.R.S., P.D.A. and W.E.B., is activated in case of an earthquake of magnitude 5 or more that hits the Italian Territory. The article describes the different phases of a seismic crisis: the activities start from the scenario production in the OSSN centre, continue in the involved area with the data collection and close with the production of synthesis maps for the emergency management. SIGE utilizes the positive experience of two IST European project: FORMIDABLE and EGERIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 26 December 2004 a strong earthquake with an epicenter west of the coast of Sumatra generated a tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The earthquake had a magnitude of 9, which makes it a rare event since earthquakes greater than magnitude 8.5 have occurred about once every 10 years since 1900 according to [5]. The last time a tsunami was generated by a magnitude 9 earthquake was on Good Friday 1964 off the coast of Alaska. The Sumatra earthquake and the tsunami that followed caused many victims in the countries surrounding the Indian Ocean. At the time of writing the death toll stands at 225000, which is an incredible number that is changing by the day. This article discusses two unique scientific aspects related to the earthquake and the tsunami. Four satellite altimeters picked up the traveling wave in the Indian Ocean, evidenced by the fact that a tsunami model matches the satellite observations. Early GPS observed displacements at a few sites in the Sumatra, Thailand, Malaysia region confirm the predictions of a geophysical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With each passing day, catastrophe risk for urban regions of the world is increasing. One of these catastrophes is the earthquake and recent events in Northridge and Kobe were typical examples of what can happen when a major earthquake strikes directly under a densely populated area. Mega cities created by the rapid urbanization and development in unsafe areas led to far greater losses experienced in the past. In order to reduce the property losses after an earthquake a quick repair process is a major task. This process must be based on detailed plans for rebuilding or strengthening procedures of the buildings. The major damage loss is caused by earthquakes. Geodetic science plays an important role in the earthquake research. By means of long-term measurement, deformations caused by the breakage of the earth crust caused by the moving plates can be examined. Photogrammetry and Information System techniques are new tools in the earthquake research. Terrestrial photogrammetric methods have been used for the first time to document the damages after an earthquake in Friaul, Italy. There are many attempts to use photogrammetry, remote sensing and information sciences in the earthquake damaged areas. Some of them are related with the earthquake prediction, long and short term, some of them is related to the damage recording and assessment. A similar study to this research is the work after the Kobe earthquake. In all these studies they claim of data collection as well as before or after an earthquake. Earlier earthquakes revealed problems in the processes of documenting and analyzing the building damage that occurred due to earthquake disasters which demanded much effort in terms of time and man power. The main difficulties appeared because analogue damage assessments created a great variety of unstructured information that had to be put in a line to allow further analysis. Apart from that, documentation of damage effects was not detailed and could only be carried out on the spot of a disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This book began by extolling the benefits of studying very long-term trends in health using evidence from skeletal remains. To this end, we coordinated the preparation of the largest comparable database ever assembled in the field of bioarchaeology, which consists of observations on 12,520 individuals who lived over the past several millennia at 65 composite sites in the Western Hemisphere. The database is available to the public and includes seven commonly measured, basic indicators of health: stature inferred from long bone lengths; evidence of anemia from porotic hyperostosis or cribra orbitalia; linear enamel hypoplasias; trauma; infectious lesions on bones; dental health; and degenerative joint disease. The first three indicators reflect the health quality of life in childhood, while the last two are connected with the degenerative processes of aging and hard work. Trauma and infectious lesions can occur at any age but are more common among older children and adults. Our conclusions first highlight methodological contributions, beginning with a technique for measuring health based on two essential ingredients: health quality of life while living and length of life. The Mark I version of the health index, which roughly gauges chronic conditions of the first component, is based on the prevalence and severity of the basic health indicators. We tabulated separate indexes for each attribute and weighted them equally in calculating the overall index. Attributes for individual observations were scored from 0 (worst outcome) to 100 (no evidence of pathology), and the results at each site were converted to age-specific rates, which were weighted by the distribution of person-years lived by age in a reference population (Model West, level 4). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chapter 10 of the book "Learning from Construction Failures: Applied Forensic Engineering" by Peter Campbell, is presented. It mentions that some risk avoidance aims and even requirements backed by legislation, are thus disproportionate when compared to statistics defining average acceptable losses. It presents information on natural hazards, emanating from the physical environment, such as typhoons or earthquake.

Chapter 6 of the book "Learning from Construction Failures: Applied Forensic Engineering" by Peter Campbell, is presented. It explores the purpose of risk assessment for structures is to identify possible forces or events beyond normal design assumptions, and where possible to mitigate their effects. It states that risk analysis requires data, notably on winds, waves, temperature, earthquakes, service loading, reliability of equipment, and perhaps human performance.

Chapter 48 of the book "The Earth Trembled," by Edward P. Roe is presented. It portrays the tensions between the North Carolina and South Carolina after the Civil War, as well as the terrifying earthquakes in Charleston, South Carolina. It highlights the happy ending of Owen Clancy and Mara Wallington's love after all the trials they went through.

Chapter 44 of the book "The Earth Trembled," by Edward P. Roe is presented. It portrays the tensions between the North Carolina and South Carolina after the Civil War. It highlights the terrifying earthquakes in Charleston, South Carolina, in which the Southern people helping each other lives. It deals with the preparedness of residents for another attack of the natural disaster.

In this article, the author explore the experience of earthquake in Pine Street, U.S.