388th
meeting : "How Often does the Mae Chan Fault
Generate Large Earthquakes?"
Tuesday
10 Mar
2015.
A
talk by Ray Weldon
The Talk:
This talk will be a progress report on work underway to determine the
timing of recent ground-rupturing earthquakes on the Mae Chan Fault
that runs through Chiang Rai province in NW Thailand. Preliminary work,
done as part of a training course in 1994 in collaboration with the US
Geological Survey (USGS), the Thai Department of Mineral Resources
(DMR), and several universities (including Chulalongkorn and Chiang
Mai). Subsequent work carried out by the DMR supported the hypothesis
that the Mae Chan Fault caused the Wiang Yonok Nakon earthquake in the
5th century AD (e.g. Wood, 2012). Evidence includes faulting of layers
containing cultural artifacts such as stone axes and pottery. Field
work planned for February and March should verify this preliminary data
and hopefully will provide the timing of earlier earthquakes with which
to estimate how often the Mae Chan generates earthquakes large enough
to rupture the ground surface. The presentation will review the past
work and show those who attend what an active fault looksl ike in
northern Thailand.
The Speaker:
Ray Weldon is Professor of Structural Geology and Neotectonics at the
University of Oregon. He studies active faults in the field and works
closely with seismologists, geodesists, geochronologists, and hazard
and risk analysts to integrate field observations into
models of how faults work and generate seismic hazard and risk. Ray,
his students and colleagues have recently worked on the Cascadia
Subduction Zone and the Basin and Range in Oregon, the San Andreas
Fault in California, and fold and thrust belts in Alaska and the Kyrgyz
Tien Shan and on the Red River, Xianshuihe, and Mae Chan faults in SE
Asia. In pursuit of his conviction to make science practical, Ray
serves on the Executive Committee of the Uniform California Earthquake
Rupture Forecast (UCERF, the official source model for California
earthquakes), the Steering Committee for the US National Seismic Hazard
Map (that sets national building codes, among other things), and
consults for a number of public and private entities on seismic hazards
posed to nuclear power plants and dams. Ray teaches the Oregon Geology
and Summer Field Camp (in addition to specialized courses) and is most
proud of having successfully graduated 22 MS and PhD students in his 27
years at Oregon..
Want to read more?
....click "HERE"
(PDF File for downloading or reading on line - 10 pages). For the presentation ... click "HERE" ( PDF File for downloading or reading on line - 51 slides).
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