The role of active tectonics in the study of earthquakes and in the assessment of seismic hazard has become increasingly important over the past two decades. Large crustal earthquakes may produce primary and secondary effects at the Earth’s surface that are recorded in young sediments and in the morphology. Thus, both present-day and past earthquakes can be studied from a geological and geophysical perspective. Active tectonics studies of recent earthquake ruptures provide data that are complementary to seismological and geodetic data, and help constraining source parameters. The insights gleaned from the study of recent earthquakes can be applied to identify past earthquakes. In most parts of the world, paleoseismology is the only tool to establish a record of earthquakes that is sufficiently long to determine recurrence intervals and long-term deformation rates (and their variability). Earthquake field studies are indispensable to identify active faults, and to constrain the maximum magnitude they may generate, parameters that are crucial in seismic hazard assessment. The field has also matured, and expanded into new directions: it has become possible to image the buried evidence of single and multiple events using near-surface geophysics, and to drill through active faults and retrieve core samples, to name but a few.
In this session, we welcome contributions describing and critically discussing different geological and geophysical approaches to the study of earthquakes and seismogenic faults. We are particularly interested in studies applying new and innovative methodological or multidisciplinary approaches. We hope to assemble a broad program bringing together studies dealing with both present-day and past earthquakes, plate-boundary and intraplate settings, and traditional trenching and geophysical methods, as well as the application of earthquake geology in seismic hazard assessment.