Geophysics, geodesy and tectonics of the north Africa plate boundary for better earthquake and tsunami hazard assessments

The past few decades have seen an unprecedented range of seismic activity along the plate boundary of North Africa, which has focused the attention of scientists and local communities on geo-hazards. Recently in May 2003, the Zemmouri earthquake (Mw 6.8) that generated a tsunami and occurred east of the city of Algiers, is the largest felt since February 1716 {I = X). Barely ten years after May 1994 (Mw 6.0), Al Hoceima city and the Rif Mountains of Morocco were struck once again in February 2004 by a large earthquake (Mw 6.4). Previously, the city of Cairo was struck in October 1992 by a M 5.5 magnitude earthquake, which induced large damage. In 1935, the Syrte region in Libya experienced an M 7.1 with severe damage.

Results of investigations into the most recent events have highlighted an urgent need to build capacity in modern methods spanning geophysics, space geodesy and tectonics for evaluation, monitoring and predicting both earthquake and tsunami hazards in North Africa with implications on the Mediterranean.

The first three days (15 to 17 May 2010) of the workshop will consist in educational lectures and hands-on training sessions and will provide graduate and post-graduate students with the current knowledge in the physics of earthquakes, faults and tsunami, followed by lectures on GPS and InSAR fundamentals.

The workshop will be followed by an international conference (18 to 21 May 2010) with invited and contributed papers, and panel discussions. The conference will address research themes that span the scale of the North-Africa plate boundary to individual active structures, and range from basic research to applied and pragmatic solutions with implications on earthquake and tsunami hazards.

The goals of the workshop are to establish a new initiative for cooperation in North Africa, to design programs to comprehensively monitor the time and length scales of plate boundary and earthquake deformation and evaluate earthquake and tsunami hazards, and to develop networks for exchange of ideas and expertise.