Science at UM [S04-ep10]: The distant field of earthquakes
This week on A l’UM la science, Philippe Vernant, researcher at Géosciences Montpellier, talks to us about the Kahramanmaras earthquake. The report takes you to the Restinclières estate to discover a seismometer. Finally, the last-minute guest presents the 7th edition of the Sud de science. A program broadcast every Wednesday on Divergence FM 93.9.
On February 6, 2023, at around 1 a.m., an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale shook the cities of Gaziantep and Kahramanmaras in Anatolia, in southeastern Turkey. Nine hours later, at around 10 a.m., a second tremor measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale shook Ekinozu, less than 100 km away.
The two events lasted only a few minutes in total, but their violence was such that nearly 60,000 people were killed, thousands were injured, 2 million were displaced, and infrastructure was devastated. On February 9, 2023, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres declared that this double earthquake was one of the greatest natural disasters of our time. On February 20 and 27, two other earthquakes measuring 6.4 and 5.6 on the Richter scale were recorded in the provinces of Hatay and Malatya. Hundreds of aftershocks were felt in the days and even weeks that followed.
So what happened? This region has been known for its seismic activity since ancient times. In the 20th century, the earthquakes in Erzincan in 1939 and Izmit in 1999 confirmed this activity, and the latest seismic hazard maps predicted the possibility of a strong earthquake in the Gaziantep region. Nevertheless, its magnitude surprised observers and politicians alike.
Turkish and French scientists studied this major event by examining the deformations of the Earth's crust following the earthquake around the faults, but also in much more distant regions. Their findings, published last October in the journal Science, are entitled "Unexpected distant field deformation of the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquakes revealed by space geodesy." We discuss this with our guest Philippe Vernant, a researcher at Géoscience Montpellier and co-author of the paper.
Read:
- The publication Unexpected distant field deformation of the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquakes revealed by space geodesy in Science
- The CNRS article Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria: what happened?
In the second part of the program, Sandrine Baudin and Christel Tiberi from the Montpellier Geosciences Laboratory take us to the Restinclières estate to discover aseismometer.
At the end of the program, Thomas Pichery presents the program for the Sud de Sciences science festival, which begins on November 27.
At UM Science, you have the program, so let's get started!
Co-production: Divergence FM / University of Montpellier
Host: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Interview: Lucie Lecherbonnier / Aline Périault
Reporting and editing: Lucie Lecherbonnier / Aline Périault
Production: Bruno Bertrand / Gabriel Fradin
Listen to the program “A l’UM la science” on Divergence FM 93.9
