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ASC2000, sponsored by the Asian Seismological Commission (ASC), the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior (IASPEI), IUGG, ICSU, UNESCO, the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education of Iran, the National Committee for Reduction of Natural Disasters in Iran, and the Scientific Research Council of Iran, was held at Tehran, Iran, 10-12 October 2000. It was organized by the Institute of Geophysics, University of Teheran. In the history of the Asian Seismological Commission this was the third gathering for scholars in the region. The symposium was an opportunity for the representatives from most of the Asian countries as well as from Africa, Europe, America and Australia to offer the results of their scientific achievements in the field of Seismology, Earthquake Hazard Assessment and Earth's Interior Related Topics. The technical sessions included the following topics: earthquake processes, precursors and forecasts; recent devastating earthquakes, strong ground motion, and seismic hazard; seismotectonics with special reference to western Asia; induced and triggered seismicity; heat flow, volcanology, lithosphere and structure of the Earth's interior; and recent trends in seismic instrumentation, data processing, GPS, public awareness and related topics. The symposium was followed by two technical workshops, Educating the Public about Earthquake Hazard and Risk, and Seismic Networks and Site Selection, which were held at the Institute of Geophysics, University of Teheran on 13-14 October 2000.
The European Seismological Commission (ESC), with the financial support of IASPEI, has sponsored three training courses for Young Seismologists in order to expose them to data acquisition, processing techniques and empirical evaluation of site effects under the tutorship of many established seismologists throughout Europe and the world. The recent training course in Lisbon, following the now established format, took place in the two days (8-9 September 2000) before the General Assembly and focused on earthquake locations and their uncertainties. Eleven students from four countries attended the course. Lecture notes were distributed to the students together with CD's containing the test data used in the course for students to use on their return.
As an implement of IASPEI's training and education program, the local organizing committee of the Asian Seismological Commission (ASC) organized the International Regional Training Course on Seismology and Mitigation of Seismic Disasters prior to the third ASC Assembly. The Training Course was co-sponsored by the Institute of Geophysics, Teheran University. There were more than 25 participants from Finland, India, Yemen, Russia and Iran. Distinguished international seismologists from Asia, Europe, and America were invited to give lectures on the up- to-date development of modern seismology and physics of the Earth's interior. The lectures started with an overview of seismology and historical background. Then the new methods to determine the source parameters were discussed and were followed by computer practices. New understanding of seismotectonic features, prediction studies, physics of the source, inversion methods, ground strong motion and the use of internet facilities were among the topics that were included in the course.
Modern scientific investigations of earthquakes began in the 1880's, and the International Association of Seismology (IAS) was organized in 1901 to promote collaboration of scientists and engineers in studying earthquakes. With rapid advances in the 20th century, many branches of seismology developed and there is not an authoritative reference that summarizes our present knowledge about earthquake and engineering seismology. It is our hope that this Handbook will help to bridge the gap between seismologists and earthquake engineers and will be truly international in scope. The aims for the Handbook are: to summarize the well established facts; to review relevant theories; to survey useful methods and techniques; and to document and archive basic seismic data. It will consist of about 84 chapters grouped into 10 parts, with 4 CD-ROMs containing materials to augment the printed chapters, and including a compilation of seismic data from around the world and a global earthquake database with software for displaying seismicity maps. It is also our desire to prepare an affordable publication. Academic Press will publish the Handbook as a 1,200 page, 8 1/2 by 11-inch case bound volume. It will be published in 2001 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of IAS (the predecessor of IASPEI). Publication of this Handbook is under the auspices of the IASPEI Committee on Education.
While there exist good text books and many university curricula on more general or theoretical, research- oriented aspects of seismology there is a lack of job-related education, training and instruction material in the field of observational seismology. Although the last (1979) edition of the Manual of Seismological Observatory Practice (MSOP) is now available on the web (http://www.seismo.com), it covers analogue techniques only. Computer and communication technologies, as well as the availability of modern broadband sensors, have revolutionized seismological practice during the last two decades of the 20th century. This necessitates the elaboration of a new MSOP (NMSOP). It is currently under development as a web site. The web-based NMSOP is maintained as continuously up-graded, up-dated and complemented reference source with integrated training modules. This shall be achieved through an open interactive dialog between users and contributors. First contributions are already available via http://www.seism.com/msop/nmsop/nmsop.html. A hard copy version of the NMSOP is planned, complemented by an easy to update loose-leaf collection of job-related worksheets. The systematically structured tutorial body of the manual aims at creating a broader interdisciplinary problem awareness and understanding of the scientific-technical and theoretical fundamentals of seismological observations and their routine analysis, and at the motivation of observatory personnel. It will be complemented by self-explanatory worksheets and exercises with solutions. They provide instructions, relevant formulae, programs, references data and sources needed for proper execution of the most important observatory tasks such as site selection, instrument installation and calibration, seismogram analysis, earthquake location, parameter determination, etc.. Manual chapters and worksheets may be used as training modules for observatory practice.
The International Commission for Earth Sciences in Africa (ICESA) was formed jointly with IASPEI as a Coordinating Committee of the International Lithosphere Program (ILP) with the overall objective of promoting and coordinating geo-scientific work in Africa by facilitating the exchange of scientific personnel, information and collaboration among African countries and similar organizations working in the field of earth sciences. ICESA is also devoted to the initiation of training programs for African scientists and technicians as well as to the organization of meetings/seminars for the exchange of ideas among earth scientists. The new council of ICESA was appointed in 1999 and had as its first task to redefine the focus of the Commission toward a realistic objective in the framework of the current situation on the continent. After consultation with the ILP Bureau and IASPEI, ICESA decided on activities over the next six years that will result in the publication of a book on African geology and the stimulation of publications by African scientists in international journals. At this stage of the project eight Special Issues of the Journal of African Earth Sciences (JAES) are being planned as a joint venture between ICESA and JAES. As discussed earlier with the Executive Editor of JAES (Prof. Bowden), these issues will contain review papers to be used as background material for ICESA's book on the geology of Africa. Provisional titles for the Special Issues and a list of Guest Editors have been compiled. The Guest Editors, in consultation with ICESA Council, will produce the final list of review papers for each Special Issue.
A Committee on Developing Countries (CDC) Newsletter is distributed twice a year. The Newsletter gives information about symposia, meetings, training courses, network development, reports of important geological events, software and instrumental development, etc. With the active cooperation of fellow scientists, the Newsletter disseminates information to scientists in developing countries regularly and has provided a forum for various scientific activities of IASPEI and other scientific bodies. Every effort has been made in these Newsletters to increase participation from developing countries in international symposia/seminars by reproducing meeting announcements well in advance and also advising about the sources of financial support. Realising the fact that many research/educational institutes in developing countries suffer from inadequate scientific literature, very often a good number of popular scientific articles on earth and natural sciences from various international journals are reproduced. The Newsletter is circulated globally, primarily to the scientists in developing countries,but also to some scientists in developed countries who are especially interested in the development of seismology in third world countries. The present circulation figure is more than 300.
As part of IASPEI's outreach effort, the Publications Transfer Program of the Committee for Developing Countries (CDC) makes available basic texts and publications on seismology and related earth sciences to institutions in need. The IASPEI Secretariat currently serves as a clearing house for all publications requests and offers. There have been many requests for the materials available through the publications transfer project. In the year 2000 the project has provided publications to the following institutions:
Instituto Geofisico del Peru (Lima, Peru) - on May 22nd the library was totally destroyed. Hence, in addition to sending them the journals on their list, we also sent them 4 boxes of assorted texts.
Centre for Earth Science Studies (Akkulam, India) - This is an institution with "poor library facilities" that does not have any of the publication transfer journals dated after 1987.
Guru Jambeshwar University (Hisar, India) - This is a request from their applied mathematics department on behalf of 3 members of their staff conducting research in theoretical seismology. They apparently do not have access to geophysical journals.
Gadjah Madah University (Yogyakarta, Indonesia) - Journals were requested on behalf of the departmental library of the Department of Geodetic Engineering. They will primarily be used by students.
Univ. Nac La Plata (Argentina) - They are trying to fill gaps in their BSSA collection.
IASPEI uses this system to broadcast announcements about forthcoming meetings and other information of interest to IASPEI members.
IASPEI continues development of its Home Page on the WorldWideWeb which contains organizational information, a publications list, meeting announcements and Internet connections and other information of interest to IASPEI scientists. The current address for this web site is: http://www.iaspei.org/
The IASPEI Secretariat with the assistance of Carl Kisslinger (Editor) has published a 26 page Brochure entitled "The International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior: Cooperation for Better Understanding of the Earth". Copies can be obtained from the IASPEI Secretariat.
The IASPEI Committee for Developing Countries (CDC) circulates biannually from Hyderabad a Newsletter intended to provide a forum for exchanging news and views of geophysical importance among geoscientists, particularly from developing countries.
Oni, E. A. (Editor). Advances in Geodesy and Geophysics Research in Africa, International Commission for Earth Sciences in Africa, Dept. of Physics, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria, 498 p., 2000.
Igel, H., Geller, R.J. (Editors). Special Issue. Numerical Modeling of Global Seismic Wave Propagation: Algorithms-Accuracy-Verification, Proceedings of the IASPEI Symposium held during the 29th General Assembly in Thessaloniki, Greece, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, v. 119, 2000.
Zhao, D., Hasegawa, A. (Editors). Special Issue. Seismic Structure and Stress Regime of Subduction Zones, Proceedings of the IASPEI Symposium held during the 29th General Assembly in Thessaloniki, Greece, Tectonophysics, v. 319, 2000.
Wu, Ru-Shan (Editor). Special Issue. Waves in Complex Media, Proceedings of the IASPEI Symposium held during the 29th General Assembly in Thessaloniki, Greece, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, v. 120, 2000.
Each software volume of the IASPEI Software Library includes the executable code, examples on floppy diskettes, and printed documentation.
Under the auspices of the Working Group on Personal Computers, a PC shareware library is being published on diskette, including files with short-form manuals of the programs. The Library provides for fast and wide distribution of geophysical programs and utilities, reduced or demonstration versions of geophysical software, and beta-versions of new programs to be included in future volumes of the SSL.
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Last modified:
November 20, 2007
Maintained by: Alice Walker abw@bgs.ac.uk at the British Geological Survey