earthquake

Topic description and stories

Moving a capital city: learning from when the earth moves

14 Nov 2023

Indonesia plans to build a new capital city from scratch. Protecting the new city from the effects of earthquakes will be crucial. Here's how...

Turkey earthquake – a glimpse of the ECHO assessment

Cambridge engineer to co-lead earthquake reconnaissance mission to Turkey

13 Feb 2023

Professor Emily So will lead a UK response to uncover the causes of the extensive damage and loss of life

Scientists 'see' puzzling features deep in Earth’s interior

19 May 2022

New research led by the University of Cambridge is the first to obtain a detailed 'image' of an unusual pocket of rock at the boundary layer with...

Chunks of exotic green rocks from the mantle erupted from the San Carlos Volcanic Field, Arizona

Rock crystals from the deep give microscopic clues to earthquake ground movements

24 Jun 2021

Microscopic imperfections in rock crystals deep beneath Earth’s surface play a deciding factor in how the ground slowly moves and resets in the...

Machine learning used to predict earthquakes in a lab setting

23 Oct 2017

A group of researchers from the UK and the US have used machine learning techniques to successfully predict earthquakes. Although their work was...

A badly damaged house in North New Brighton, Christchurch, New Zealand, Credit: Martin Luff

'Extreme sleepover #18' – rebuilding earthquake-shattered Christchurch

22 Sep 2016

Kristen MacAskill describes how an earthquake in her hometown served to influence her career as an engineer.

Earthquake rocks Afghanistan and Pakistan – an area prone to magnitude 7 quakes

27 Oct 2015

Professor Simon Redfern (Department of Earth Sciences) discusses the devastating earthquake that struck Afghanistan on October 26 and the geological...

The city of Muzafarabad, Pakistan lays in ruins after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake that hit the region.

Earthquakes without frontiers

26 Oct 2015

The Alpine–Himalayan belt, which stretches from the Mediterranean to the Pacific, is one of the world’s most seismically active regions. Now, a...

Lake on the surface of Lirung Glacier. The rapid drainage of such lakes may cause flooding downstream and may have contributed to devastating mudflows during the earthquake.

Perspectives on the Nepal earthquake

28 Apr 2015

As the death toll continues to rise in Nepal, Senior Lecturer Dr Ian Willis, and PhD student Evan Miles, from the Scott Polar Research Institute...

Nepal shows its vulnerability after devastating earthquake

27 Apr 2015

Following the devastating earthquake that struck Nepal this weekend, Simon Redfern, Professor in Earth Sciences at University of Cambridge, explains...

Ounce of prevention, pound of cure

09 Oct 2012

Working with humanitarian organisations in Haiti, Cambridge researchers have found that an information system they designed to track how regions...

A wave approaches Miyako City from the Heigawa estuary in Iwate Prefecture

Scientists explain scale of Japanese tsunami

24 Aug 2012

Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes under the seabed. Some tsunamis – including the disaster that hit Japan last year – are unexpectedly large...