The Landscape Remembers
- EN - DE
New Findings by Earth Scientists from Potsdam and Berlin Published in Science. Earth scientists Dr. Wolfgang Schwanghart and Prof. Oliver Korup, PhD, from the Natural Hazards Group at the University of Potsdam investigate extreme events in the Earth's recent history. In a study recently published in the science journal Science, Schwanghart and Korup were part of an international team who investigated thick deposits in the Pokhara valley in the Himalayan country Nepal. One of the co-authors is Dr. Philipp Hoelzmann, who is a researcher at the Institute of Geographical Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin. Detailed studies now show for the first time that three major earthquakes in the Middle Ages resulted in upheavals with great impact in the countryside around Nepal's second-largest city. The seismic waves triggered landslides that displaced tons of debris from the Annapurna Massif over 60 kilometers, filling at least a dozen valleys up to 100 meters high. Comparable landscape changes have not been made by recent earthquakes, which illustrates the enormous destructive potential of large earthquakes on the "Roof of the World." - In the spring of 2015, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 on the Richter scale struck Nepal, killing nearly 9,000 people.
