Our first paper on Chilean earthquakes is now available online in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews. The paper is open access, so the full text is free for anyone to read.
The work we present sets out how we can use diatoms, microscopic algae, to quantify the changes in land level which occur during plate boundary earthquakes. We're interested in reconstructing these land level changes as they may provide a way of working out how big past earthquakes have been. Others have used similar approaches to identify and increase understanding of the threat posed by large earthquakes in Alaska, Japan and along the west coast of the United States. We apply the techniques to Chile, demonstrating that estimates of land level change using diatoms are accurate and useful.
