MEETING OF THE ESC COUNCIL
Thursday, August 23, 2001

Minutes of the ESC Business meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam 23 August 2001

Present: L Mendes Victor, P Suhadolc, D Giardini, A Walker, A Shapira, Y Typkin, K Klinge, P Burton, C Browitt, K Atakan, J Bonnin and A Zavyalov

1.         L Mendes Victor welcomed delegates and tabled the hard copy of the proceedings of the ESC meeting in Lisbon as a draft. It is also available on the web and comments and corrections are welcome. He noted that this meeting was concerned with the scientific programme for the Genoa meeting of 2-8 September 2002.

2.         He reported on recent discussions regarding earthquake prediction which took place recently in Geneva. They established the concept of a World Agency of Planetary Monitoring and Earthquake Risk Reduction). A steering committee has been formed with Max Wyss as chairman and L Mendes Victor is a representative. They received information from NASA, ESA and the Russian Space Agency. The meeting was organized by the Russians.

3.         D Giardini noted that there was a strong push from the Earth observation sector with an industrial interest. M Wyss has indicated that his participation is based on the assumption there will be a strong scientific content.

4.         J Bonnin noted that Jean Pierre Massue has had a significant role. There is a push from the wider community, not just the scientific one, J Bonnin was involved in early drafting of the proposal.

5.         D Giardini has investigated the possibility of IASPEI providing a loan facility (£5k) to support the European Field Investigation Team.

6.         A Shapira reported that he was helping the ASC with their web-site. P Suhadolc has asked Zhu to contact EMSC for some help.

7.         D Giardini reported that 5000 copies of the hazard map of the European Mediterranean region would be distributed in September/October 2001.

8.         J Bonnin noted that FP6 was orientated towards global change and disaster mitigation which means that geological hazards are not being covered by FP6. There may be a possibility of support from the programme on national actions but this is likely to be small. There is a need for action and lobbying through national MEP’s as the proposal for FP6 is already drafted.

9.         The scientific programme for Genoa 2002 was discussed. P Suhadolc reported that he had received proposals from the subcommisions and the related list was prepared and presented at the meeting.

10.       C Browitt proposed that there should be a symposium on remote sensing and seismology. J Bonnin endorsed this and suggested seeking co-sponsorship from the remote sensing community. J Zschau would be an appropriate convener. Other topics were suggested by various people. and these are listed in the Annex.

11.       P Burton noted that an alternative approach would be to propose a small number of broad titles eg. Hazard and then to arrange specific symposia depending on the response

12.       A scope for all of these titles will be needed.

13.       D Giardini, before leaving, requested that the ESC nominating committee be appointed before the next ESC conference rather than during it. The ESC bureau will check that there is no bar to this approach and will carry the action forward.   

14.       P Suhadolc will send another e-mail requesting any further suggestions with a deadline of end November 2001 so that the programme can be finalized in January 2002.

15.       P Suhadolc reminded the meeting that the last YSTC was on earthquake locations. C Trifu had indicated he could give a course on moment tensor inversion. K Klinge and A Shapira suggested broadband analysis; digital analysis from digital data, for which  K Klinge confirmed the course was already prepared together with the software, seismic handler programme. The course title for the YSTC was agreed as Analysis of Digital Broadband Data. A Shapira suggested there should be input from the ISC so that the course would be focused on their needs. K Klinge and K Stammler would be the joint co-ordinators. On a proposal from C Browitt, the meeting confirmed acceptance of this course for 2002; the timing is right and the ISC had considered the later phase issue at length during its Governing Council meeting on 20 August 2001.

16.       P Suhadolc thanked K Klinge for the offer. To enable the course to be facilitated locally, he will put K Klinge in contact with C Eva. Unix machines are preferred. The aim will be 16-20 students and sufficient computers to allow not more than 2 per machine.

17.       A Walker will e-mail the draft ESC Lisbon proceedings to all sub-commission chairpersons requesting their comments by end of September 2001, in order to finalise and distribute the report in October.  

18.       L Mendes Victor thanked everyone and closed the meeting at 19:45.

Alice B Walker

ESC Assistant Secretary

23 August 2001

ANNEX

ESC SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMME GENOVA 2002

PROPOSALS

Special sessionS

SS Remote sensing in seismology

(Bertrand de Luis - Nice, Jochen Zschau - Potsdam)

Rapid data retrieval, SAR, sattelites….

SS Correlation between earthquakes and other geo-phenomena

(Shapira)

Subcommission sessions

SC-A Historical seismology

(Hammerl, Stucchi)

SC-A CTBTO session

(Gitterman)

SC-A The future of European seismological infrastructures

(Feignier, van Eck)

SC-B Poster and internet demonstration session on the New Manual of Seismological Observatory Practice

(Bormann)

SC-B Trans-network analysis

Analysis of integrated data from seismic networks + integrated networks data

SC-B Borehole seismology

(Deichmann)

SC-B/F Stochastic algorithms for ground motion estimates

(Shapira)

SC-C Automatic procedures for rapid source parameter  determination

(Bock)

SC-C Active tectonics and paleoseismology

(Atakan)

SC-D Recent results from large-scale experiments and methods of passive seismology

(Bock)

SC-E Triggering Phenomena (Workshop)

(Sobolev, De Rubeis)

SC-E Criticality and earthquake preparation

(Tyupkin, Bernard)

SC-E/C Earthquake source dynamics from theory and laboratory

SC-F Seismological investigations of site conditions and site response

(Bormann)

SC-F Seismic scenarios for strong ground motion estimates

(Suhadolc, Frolova)

Young Scientists Training Course

ANALYSIS  OF DIGITAL BROADBAND DATA

(Klinge Klaus and Stammler Klaus)

Seismic Handler Programme (Unix, Linux)