Science at UM [S04-ep10]: The Far Field of Earthquakes
This week on "Science at UM," Philippe Vernant, a researcher at Géosciences Montpellier, talks to us about the Kahramanmaras earthquake. The report takes you to the Restinclières estate to discover a seismometer. Finally, our 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 struck the cities of Gaziantep and Kahramanmaras in Anatolia, in southeastern Turkey. Nine hours later, around 10 a.m., a second tremor with a magnitude of 7.5 struck Ekinozu, less than 100 km away.
The two events lasted only a few minutes in total, but their intensity was such that they left nearly 60,000 dead, thousands injured, 2 million displaced, and infrastructure 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 more 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 1939 Erzincan earthquake and the 1999 Izmit earthquake confirmed this activity, and the latest seismic hazard maps had warned of the possibility of a strong earthquake in the Gaziantep region, yet its magnitude nevertheless surprised observers and policymakers alike.
Turkish and French scientists have studied this major event by analyzing ground deformation caused by the earthquake not only along the faults but also in regions much further away. Their findings led to unexpected observations published last October in the journal Science in an article titled “Unexpected Far-Field Deformation from 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 paper " Unexpected Far-Field Deformation from the 2023 Kahramanmaraş Earthquakes Revealed by Space Geodesy" published in *Science*
- CNRS Article : Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria: What Happened?
In the second half of the program, Sandrine Baudin and Christel Tiberi from the Montpellier Geosciences Laboratory take us to the Restinclières estate to explore aseismometer.
At the end of the show, Thomas Pichery presents the program for the Sud de Sciences science festival, which begins on November 27.
At UM Science, you’ve got the program—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
Directed by: Bruno Bertrand / Gabriel Fradin
Tune in to the show “A l’UM la science” on Divergence FM 93.9
