The study of active faults and deformation of the Earth's surface has made, and continues to make, significant contributions to our understanding of earthquakes and the assessment of seismic related hazard. Active faulting may form and deform the Earth's surface so that records are documented in young sediments and in the landscape. Field studies of recent earthquake ruptures help not only constraining earthquake source parameters but also the identification of previously unknown active structures. The insights gleaned from recent earthquakes can be applied to study past earthquakes. Paleoseismology and related disciplines such as paleogeodesy and paleotsunami investigations still are the primary tools to establish earthquake records that are long enough to determine recurrence intervals and long-term deformation rates for active faults. Multidisciplinary data sets accumulated over the years have brought unprecedented constraints on the size and timing of past earthquakes, and allow deciphering shorter-term variations in fault slip rates or seismic activity rates, as well as the interaction of single faults within fault systems.

In this session, we welcome contributions describing and critically discussing different approaches to study active 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 on-land, lake or offshore environments, and applying a variety of methods such as traditional paleoseismic trenching, high-resolution coring, geophysical imaging, tectonic geomorphology, and remote sensing, as well as the application of earthquake geology in seismic hazard assessments.