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Stephen Hicks

@seismo-steve.bsky.social

2.6K followers 230 following 49 posts

Seismologist. NERC Independent Research Fellow and Lecturer at University College London (UCL). https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/89579-stephen-hicks

profiles.ucl.ac.uk

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Feb 6

Back from parental leave, deleted my Twitter account, and ready to engage with BlueSky!
Some personal news: I’m pleased to say that I’m starting a new job as NERC Independent Research Fellow and Lecturer in Environmental Seismology at University College London (UCL).
Finally, a permanent job!

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · 18d

Love it when a plan comes together, and quickly.

Dr Dan Shugar 🇨🇦 @watershedlab.bsky.social · 19d

The greatest part about doing science is working with great people. If you’re in this skeet, you’ll know it. 🧪⚒️

Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Aug 14

In case you hadn't seen yet, this event has sent seismic signals all around the word, with both body and surface waves. Below are Z-components of GSN stations, filtered 25-100 s.
Goran Ekstrom's surface wave detector gives this a surface magnitude = 5.4(!).

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Reposted by Stephen Hicks

Anthony Lomax @alomaxnet.bsky.social · Aug 14

A longer sonification with slower sound rate factor (1000) gives a clearer and more detailed impression of the evolution of the "drumbeat" seismicity, which continues with increasing frequency right up to the largeest (landslide failure?) signal, but not after.

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Aug 14

The massive landslide + tsunami in Alaska on Sunday (10 August; earthquake.alaska.edu/major-landsl...) has sent seismic waves all around the world. Body waves visible up to 90°, and surface waves beyond. Record section of Z-component seismic recordings from GSN stations filtered between 25 & 100 s 👇

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Reposted by Stephen Hicks

Kristian Svennevig @ksvenenvig.bsky.social · Aug 14

Crazy (horizontal) runup from the large landslide into Tracy Arm fjord, SE Alaska. This is 20 km out the fjord and the wave reached up to 400 m into this side valley. notice how the vegetation was only wetted for the most part (pixels still red) and only the mouth of the river is destroyed.

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Reposted by Stephen Hicks

Seafloor Explorer Seminar Series @seafloorexploreruk.bsky.social · Jun 3

The first Seafloor Explorer seminar on June 17th, 15.00 BST, will cover “Recent expedition reports from Santorini”.

Speakers: Jonas Preine (WHOI, US), Michele Paulette (Imperial College London, UK) and Jens Karstens (GEOMAR, DE).

Registration info: seafloor-explorer.github.io/seafloor/sem...

Seminar 1 | Seafloor Explorer

Seminar 1

seafloor-explorer.github.io

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Jun 5

We're pleased to announce the Seafloor Explorer online seminar series on marine geoscience. The seminars will be on the 3rd Tues of each month. The 1st will be on June 17th 2025 @ 1500 BST, and will on recent unrest at Santorini.
All info, sign-up & speaker suggestions: seafloor-explorer.github.io

Seafloor Explorer | Online Seminar Series

Seminar series focused on ocean tectonics - geophysics, geochemistry, geology - and associated bio-geological processes.

seafloor-explorer.github.io

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Jun 4

Cool to see this paper out that uses a NASA SWOT altimeter to observe the 9-day water sloshing in Greenland triggered by a landslide tsunami that sent seismic waves around the world. A great effort that independently backs-up & substantially builds upon our prev work
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Observations of the seiche that shook the world - Nature Communications

The Surface Water Ocean Topography mission observed week-long earth-shaking waves formed by landslide-induced tsunamis in an East Greenland fjord. Connecting these observations with seismic data confi...

www.nature.com

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · May 12

Nice to see our Greenland seismic-seiche paper still getting some attention :)

Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · May 12

OK, this is wild.

In September 2023, geophysicists across the world started monitoring a very odd signal coming from the ground under them.

It was picked up in the Arctic. And Antarctica. It was detected everywhere, every 90 seconds, as regular as a metronome, for *nine days*.

What the HELL?

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Unsplash image of the Earth, mostly the nightside with a tracery of city lights on every continent.

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Reposted by Stephen Hicks

Dr. Judith Hubbard @judithgeology.bsky.social · May 12

Amazing - I think this may be the only footage in existence of real-time slip on a fault.

⚒️ 🧪

Douwe van Hinsbergen @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social · May 12

This is mind-blowing! I have never seen footage of the slip that occurs during an earthquake! Here you see the slip that occurred during the Myanmar earthquake. 🤯

www.youtube.com/watch?v=77ub...

First fault rupture ever filmed. M7.9 surface rupture filmed near Thazi, Myanmar

YouTube video by 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Stephen Hicks

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · Apr 19

Anchor Bolts xkcd.com/3078

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Apr 23

This morning's M6 Istanbul earthquake was preceded by a M3.9 foreshock ~35 minutes before
deprem.afad.gov.tr/last-earthqu...

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Apr 23

Detecting whales in the Atlantic Ocean using on-land seismometers in Ireland, including low-cost RaspberryShake sensors. Very cool! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fin whale song recordings by onshore seismometers open new horizons for cetacean coastal monitoring - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Fin whale song recordings by onshore seismometers open new horizons for cetacean coastal monitoring

www.nature.com

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Apr 11

Who says reviewers can't find the time these days? 😀
#AcademicHeresy

Pablo J. González @pablojglez.bsky.social · Apr 11

Amazing reviews (very detailed and super-useful) on a manuscript sent 3 months ago. Worth any moment of waiting when we know now that the study will be stronger after considering those independent points of views.

Thanks for your time community! We must protect the peer-review system.

Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Apr 3

P.s., my angle on this is from ocean bottom seismology where we don’t have constant GPS synchronisation so sometimes have realllllly bad clock drifts 😬

Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Apr 3

You would think so, but the forum post above implies they might be independent - the BB and SM might be on different dataloggers, for example. In any case, calibrating with a teleseismic P arrival could be a decent fallback option.

Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Apr 3

So it seems like the BB sensor doesn’t have timing issues? Can the onset of the SM signal be aligned with it?

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Apr 3

Assuming the clocks aren’t drifting substantially over time, you could maybe calibrate the timing with some P-wave arrivals from some known teleseismic earthquakes? There would probably be a +/1 second uncert with that but should suffice for rupture speed purposes. Is there a broadband sensor there?

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Apr 3

So ~0.5g acceleration then?

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Apr 3

Guilherme de Melo et al. (doi.org/10.1029/2024...) recently published a new scaling relationship for ocean transform fault earthquakes
log(rupturelength) = 0.81*Mw-3.68, yielding a 97 km rupture for a Mw 6.9 earthquake. Plus there has already been an aftershock at the western end of the fault.

Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Apr 3

M6.9 strike-slip quake just now on the active transform fault part of the Charlie Gibbs fracture zone in the N. Atlantic. M~7 is the typical max magnitude of ocean transform events. The active Charlie-Gibbs fault is ~150 km long - a decent portion likely ruptured. earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...

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Reposted by Stephen Hicks

Tom Gabrieli @tgabrieli.bsky.social · Apr 1

Wow!!!!!! Looks like it's the longest recorded surface rupture, surpassing the Mw 7.8 2001 Kunlun earthquake

zaxonlee.bsky.social @zaxonlee.bsky.social · Apr 1

Update: Preliminary coseismic displacements of 2025 Myanmar earthquake from @CopernicusEU @ESA #Sentinel2 images by using #CosiCorr, processed by @NTU_TW GEOG
#Copernicus

1. Rupture propagated from N to S
2. Max. offset >4m
3. Rupture length ~500km

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Reposted by Stephen Hicks

Lidong Bie @lidongbie.bsky.social · Apr 1

The descending interferogram from Sentinel-1 (20250319-20250331) suggests that the earthquake rupture extends to 18.7 degrees and may have reached further south. More data in the next few days will reveal the full length of the rupture from this devastating earthquake.

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Apr 1

Reykjanes peninsula, SW Iceland - new fissure eruption is underway www.youtube.com/watch?v=faH3...

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Stephen Hicks @seismo-steve.bsky.social · Apr 1

BSky hivemind: does anyone know how to plot faults (e.g., with triangular ticks for thrust fronts - like the white line in the map below) with Python/Matplotlib? I know I could do this with PyGMT but I'm trying to work with "raw" figure axes from Matplotlib.

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