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An international workshop on the Numerical Modeling of Mantle Convection and Lithospheric Dynamics, organized by the IASPEI Commission on Geodynamics and Tectonophysics, was held at Naurod, Germany, 14-16 August 1997.
The 29th IASPEI General Assembly was held at the University of Macedonia and the nearby Congress Center of HELEXPO, Thessaloniki, Greece, from 18-28 August 1997. The Assembly was attended by 1050 scientific participants and 70 accompanying members from 62 countries, making this the largest IASPEI General Assembly ever held. There were 716 oral papers and 695 posters scheduled in 23 symposia and 23 workshops. A full report on the General Assembly was published in the IASPEI Newsletter and can be found on the IASPEI Home Page. Major items of business accomplished at the Assembly were: (1) Development of the IASPEI scientific program for the 22nd General Assembly of IUGG and the 30th General Assembly of IASPEI, to be held in Birmingham, England, 9-30 July 1999; and (2) Selection of Hanoi, Vietnam, as the venue for the 31st General Assembly of IASPEI in 2001, which will be held jointly with IAGA.
An interdisciplinary workshop on Continental Roots, organized by the Inter-Association Commission on Physical and Chemical Properties of Materials of the Earth's Interior, was held at Harvard University, USA, 10-13 October 1997. The workshop examined in detail and from a multi-disciplinary perspective the nature, origin and evolution of the roots of continents, including the lower crust and subjacent mantle that is convectively coupled to the continent. Emphasis was placed on integrated approaches that considered the geology, geochemistry and geophysics of continental roots. The topics to be covered were: (1) The Nature of Continental Roots: geological and geophysical methods; (2) Heat Flow - Heat Production: the Deep Lithosphere; (3) Case studies: Australia, Africa and North America; (4) Early Continent Formation and Evolution; and Dynamical Aspects of Deep Continental Structure.
IASPEI intends to continue to make seismic risk reduction a top priority during the second half of the Decade. It has called upon seismological groups in member countries and individual Earth scientists to participate in the effort to reduce the great danger from earthquakes in many places around the world. IASPEI through its Commission for IDNDR has expanded its programs to study the main attributes of earthquakes and to disseminate globally knowledge on earthquakes to governments, engineers, planners, and the public.
The International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior (IASPEI) will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in the year 2001. The IASPEI Committee on Education plans to publish two volumes to start summarizing the present knowledge about earthquake and engineering seismology. These volumes will be prepared by leading experts under a distinguished international advisory board, with Paul Jennings (Caltech), Hiroo Kanamori (Caltech), and Willie Lee (USGS) as general editors. Additional volume(s) may be prepared to cover other areas of seismology and the physics of the earth's interior under different general editors and editorial boards.
The aims for the Handbook are:
It is also our desire to prepare affordable publications. Two attached CD-ROMs in the Handbook volume allow the publication of additional materials and useful data and software (equivalent to over 100,000 text pages or 650 megabytes each). The Handbook will be edited by Lee, Kanamori and Jennings with the following Advisory Board:
It is intended to be an authoritative reference for scientists and engineers, and a quick and handy reference for seismologists. It will consist of about 72 chapters grouped into 9 parts, with 2 CD-ROMs containing the additional materials from the printed chapters, a compilation of earthquake catalogs around the world, and a global earthquake database with software for displaying seismicity data. The plan is to have the manuscripts ready by the summer of 1999, reviewed and revised by the summer of 2000, and to be published in the year 2001.
The Commission on Practice of IASPEI has undertaken a project to produce a new edition of the Manual of Seismological Observatory Practice. This project is under the overall guidance of Prof. Dr. Peter Bormann. It is likely that the new edition of the Manual will be primarily an electronic document maintained on the Web, although it is intended that major parts of it will be published as a text book at a later stage.
A Regional International Training Course on Seismology and Seismic Hazard Assessment was held in Nairobi, Kenya, 5 October to 8 November, 1997. The training course was jointly organized and run by the GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ) and the University of Nairobi. It was held as part of the capacity building educational program of UNESCO and of the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth Interior (IASPEI) and is one of the major and regular German contributions to the United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR). The course was co-sponsored by the German Federal Foreign Office (AA), the Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development (BMZ), UNESCO, the United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Incorporated Research Institution for Seismology (IRIS/USA). It was attended by 18 participants from 12 African countries: Algeria (4), Botswana, Egypt, Eritrea, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Morocco, Nigeria, Sudan (2), Tanzania (2) and Zambia. A total of 20 lecturers from 9 countries covered the scientific topics of the course, amongst them 7 from the GFZ, 4 from the University of Nairobi, 2 from IRIS and one each from Algeria, Ethiopia, France, Germany (University of Karlsruhe), Norway, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
The course consisted of introductory lectures, extended practical exercises, workshop sessions and discussions and was complemented by scientific field excursions to seismological stations of the Kenyan network, to famous geological outcrops, seismotectonic features and volcanogenic objects. Main course topics were:
IASPEI continues to provide a mechanism to help transfer books and publications from individuals and institutions that have surplus stocks to institutions in developing areas that have need of them. Those with surplus publications, including back runs of journals, are invited to supply a list to the IASPEI Secretariat. Institutions in developing countries with specific needs are also invited to make these known to the IASPEI Secretariat.
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 Secretary-General prepares and distributes irregularly an Association Newsletter. The content is primarily personal reports by IASPEI Commission Chairs, meeting organizers, and other member scientists involved in IASPEI sponsored activities. The Newsletter is distributed to those who have Internet addresses using the IASPEI bulk E-mail system. Hard copy versions of the Newsletter are distributed to those who do not have Internet addresses with the assistance of the National Geophysical Research Institute in Hyderabad, India.
The IASPEI Committee for Developing Countries circulates bi-annually from Hyderabad a Newsletter intended to provide a forum for exchanging news and views of geophysical importance among geoscientists, particularly from developing countries.
The IASPEI/IDNDR Secretariat in Beijing, China, circulates irregularly a Newsletter concerning IASPEI/IDNDR activities. The Secretariat also publishes a news magazine in Chinese.
Matsu'ura, M., Marone, C.J., McNutt, S.R., Takeo, M., Main, I.G., Rundle, J.B. (Editors). Special Issue. Earthquake Generation Processes: Environmental Aspects and Physical Modelling, Proceedings of the IASPEI Symposium held during the 28th General Assembly in Boulder, USA, Tectonophysics, v. 277, 1997.
Sato, H., Korn, M., Scherbaum, F. (Editors). Special Issue. Stochastic Seismology: Stochastic Seismic Wave Fields and Realistic Media, Selected papers from the symposium held at Neustadt, Germany, on March 11-15, 1996, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, v. 104, Nos. 1-3, 30 November 1997.
IASPEI also continues development of a home page on the WorldWideWeb (http://www.seismo.com/iaspei/) which contains organizational information, a publications list, meeting announcements, and Internet connections.
The common affiliation of seismic hazard is within the scientific community represented by IASPEI. Several IASPEI commissions and working groups have played an active role in the GSHAP implementation. In 1997 an Association Lecture "The Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program: 1992-1997" presented by D. Giardini (GSHAP Coordinator); a Workshop on "The Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Program 1992-1997" dedicated to the GSHAP implementation, co-sponsored by ICL/ILP, and convened by P. Basham, V.K. Gaur, K. Shedlock and T. Tsapanos; and a GSHAP Steering Committee meeting, were held at the IASPEI General Assembly.
The workshop provided the opportunity to review the progress achieved under GSHAP as this IDNDR demonstration project nears completion. Ten oral presentations reviewed the progress in the various GSHAP regions and test areas. Poster presentations displayed all of the detailed information on seismicity, seismic source zones, strong ground motion relations and hazard maps. It is evident that GSHAP has been highly successful in standardizing the seismic hazard methodology around the globe, and in providing state-of-the-art seismic hazard assessment in many regions where previous hazard estimates did not exist.
The GSHAP Steering Committee meeting following the workshop made plans to compile a volume of the scientific results, a CD-ROM containing digital files of the hazard models and results, and a global seismic hazard map, as a final product. All of this information will also be available on a series of linked WWW home pages. These final compilations for the program should be available before the end of 1998. It is hoped that they can be maintained and built upon in future years (ref. IASPEI resolution - "Recognizing the substantial achievements on the five years of the Global Seismic Hazard Assessment Project (GSHAP), IASPEI commends the compilation of a global assessment of seismic hazard, urges all nations to collaborate to extend coverage to the full globe, and recommends its Commissions and Committees to pursue the task in the years ahead".).
IASPEI continues its participation in STEND, an information exchange program aimed at increasing awareness of available technology which is being developed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in Geneva, Switzerland.
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