| Session Details | |
| Section | SE - Solid Earth Sciences |
| Session Title | Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Active Tectonics in the Developing Countries of Southeast Asia |
| Main Convener | Prof. Phil Cummins (Australian National University, Australia) |
| Co-convener(s) | Dr. Meilano Irwan (Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia) Prof. Sri Widiyantoro (Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia) Dr. Hiroshi Inoue (National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, Japan) |
| Session Description | Southeast Asia hosts some of the worlds most active tectonics, as well as some of its most rapidly growing, and rapidly urbanising, populations. The need to mitigate geological disasters here is acute, but the developing countries of this region face particular challenges for geoscience to contribute to effective mitigation. Disaster mitigation in developed countries is typically supported by a long history of geological and geophysical surveys, along with well-developed geophysical and geodetic infrastructure. Potential sources of large earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions can be identified through some combination of geologic surveys, strain rate measurement and precise earthquake hypocenter determination. The developing countries of southeast Asia not only lack much of this history and infrastructure, but have environments that make it difficult to apply them effectively: high erosion rates and dense vegetation that obscure geomorphic signatures, humid climates that impede the application of space-based geodetic techniques, and large areas that are difficult to access and poorly serviced, making the operation of sophisticated geophysical networks difficult. In this session we seek contributions from researchers who are developing novel approaches to overcome these challenges, in order to elucidate the active tectonics and geological hazards in the developing countries of Southeast Asia. These would include new techniques such as ambient seismic noise tomography for exploring the subsurface geological environment, advanced space-based techniques such as InSAR for mapping strain rate and uplift/subsidence associated with magmatic activity, but also new ways to exploit conventional datasets, such as the use of data from mineral and petroleum exploration surveys in tectonic studies. |