A song of Earth and Fire

Earthquakes are a consequence of the sudden release of energy that has built up on faults. We now routinely respond to earthquakes using satellites, mapping surface ruptures and estimating the distribution of slip on faults at depth. Studies directly link earthquakes to their causative faults allowing us to calculate how changes in crustal stress can influence future seismic hazard. I will show examples of satellite measurements from recent deadly events such in Palu 2018, and the Nepal in 2015 and explain what insights these give us into understanding these tectonic forces.

Volcanoes are often portrayed as towering mountains rising into the sky, but in reality they are built in a geologically short period of time of many weak parts. As a result, the collapse of a volcano is in many cases inevitable. There are now well over 500 recognised cases of volcanic collapse and in the in the past 400 years these events and the associated explosive eruptions have been attributed to more than 20 000 fatalities. Just how big are these collapses, and what could it mean if one were to happen in the near future?