Earthquake

Earthquake - General Information

Earthquake impacts are many and varied, ranging from minor structural damage to a few buildings to complete devastation over huge areas. At their most powerful, earthquakes are capable of annihilating major urban centres and severely disrupting the social and economic fabric of nations. As a consequence, the range of earthquake phenomena and impacts are of concern to a broad spectrum of professions including insurance, construction, engineering, land-use planning, and disaster management.

In recent years, large earthquakes have caused two of the most costly natural disasters of all time - the 1994 Northridge quake in southern California, and the Kobe earthquake that rocked Japan in 1995. This last event resulted in over six thousand deaths and economic losses estimated at around 100 billion US dollars. Such devastation and loss can be significantly mitigated through advance assessment of seismic hazard and risk and the implementation of appropriate land-use, construction codes, and emergency plans. Together such initiatives can substantially reduce the level of death and injury, dramatically diminish the economic impact, and limit the exposure of insurance companies.

ABUHC seismologists, structural geologists and earthquake engineers can provide esearch-led expertise and advice on the complete range of phenomena related to seismic hazard and risk. Current research focuses on the use of geological fault-slip data to construct better seismic risk maps; seismic hazard in the South China region, earthquake mechanisms, building vulnerability in regions of relatively low to moderate seismicity, the seismic vulnerability assessment of reinforced concrete building populations, and human loss estimation in earthquakes. Consultancies have addressed seismic hazard and risk in Israel, Peru, Iceland, the Caribbean and China.

Earthquake - Expertise spans

1. Palaeo- and historical seismicity and their impacts
2. Instrumental monitoring of earthquakes and fault movement
3. Seismic hazard computations
4. Earthquake geology and field mapping of faults
5. Determination of building vulnerability curves
6. Earthquake strong motion analysis
7. Geotechnical engineering
8. Geographic Information Systems
9. Risk analysis
10. Post-earthquake disaster management
11. Decision-tree and financial analysis

Earthquake - What we can do

1. Provide an extensive range of services to the financial market, industry and government, including:
2. Data reviews and descriptive critiques
3. Numerical analysis of seismic hazard, vulnerability and risk
4. Loss modelling and decision analysis
5. Engineering seismological analysis of earthquake strong motion data and engineered structures
6. Field surveys of earthquake-prone terrains
7. Crustal deformation and earthquake monitoring
8. Post-earthquake management and long-term reconstruction
9. Seismic risk perception