SSA Session: The Landscape Record of Earthquakes and Faulting

[Emerson Lynch]

Dear Colleagues:

There's still one day left to submit abstracts to SSA 2026! We invite you to submit abstracts to our technical session, "The Landscape Record of Earthquakes and Faulting." Abstract submission is available at https://meetings.seismosoc.org/submit/ until 13 January 2026, 11:59 pm PST.

Cheers!

Kristen Chiama, Harvard University (kch...@g.harvard.edu) 

Catherine Hanagan, U.S. Geological Survey (chan...@usgs.gov) 

Jessica A Thompson Jobe, U.S. Geological Survey (jj...@usgs.gov) 

Emerson Lynch, Colgate University (eml...@colgate.edu) 

Nadine Reitman, U.S. Geological Survey (nrei...@usgs.gov)

Session Details:

Recent earthquakes have left vastly different records in the landscape, from coastal uplift in the 2025 Mw8.8 Kamchatka, Russia, earthquake to large lateral surface rupture in the 2025 Mw7.7 Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar), earthquake, and subtle surface displacement in the 2025 Mw7.1 Tingri, China, earthquake. How long the earthquake record remains in the landscape depends on the surface rupture (or lack thereof) and shaking signatures of the earthquake as well as the lithology and climate of the region. Field and remote sensing observations of recent and past ruptures highlight the variable rupture geometries, surface slip distributions, damage zones of distributed or off-fault deformation, and ground shaking. The extent to which the complex and heterogenous patterns are consistent or variable between earthquakes is a fundamental question in earthquake science, critical for hazard modeling, and remains largely unknown. Meanwhile, advances in numerical and physical models and laboratory experiments expand the ability to study strain accumulation and release and the landscape response and preservation through multiple earthquake cycles. In this session, we encourage abstracts that investigate spatial and temporal patterns in strain accumulation and release spanning coseismic to geologic timescales, including their causes and uncertainties. We welcome contributions from geodesy, earthquake geology, tectonic geomorphology, lacustrine paleoseismology, numerical modeling, analog experiments, and especially contributions with novel approaches integrating multiple data sources to further our understanding of how strain accumulation and release are stored in, interpreted from, and alter the landscape.