State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

Earthquakes3

  • Gauging Losses and Lessons in Turkey’s Unfolding Earthquake Tragedy

    Gauging Losses and Lessons in Turkey’s Unfolding Earthquake Tragedy

    As earthquake engineers stress, most of the time, buildings kill people, not the shaking itself. It’s exceedingly hard to unbuild, move back, or retrofit buildings at scale.

  • Balancing Act: Can Precariously Perched Boulders Signal New York’s Earthquake Risk?

    Balancing Act: Can Precariously Perched Boulders Signal New York’s Earthquake Risk?

    Long ago, melting glaciers dropped giant boulders onto surfaces in the New York City exurbs, and many seem to remain in their original, delicately balanced positions. Can they be used to judge the maximum sizes of past earthquakes?

  • Looking for the Origin of Slow Earthquakes in the Guerrero Gap

    Looking for the Origin of Slow Earthquakes in the Guerrero Gap

    We are underway on our 48-day long expedition offshore of the west coast of Mexico near Acapulco, where the young Cocos oceanic plate dives beneath the North American plate.

  • Sylhet City, Geology, and Packing Up

    Sylhet City, Geology, and Packing Up

    We finished our electromagnetic survey and mini-field school in northern Sylhet, Bangladesh, with lectures and field trips to see the geology by car and boat.

  • Start of the Mini-Field School

    Start of the Mini-Field School

    We were joined in our electromagnetic investigation of the subsurface and earthquake hazard by a group of US and Bangladeshi students and professors for a mini-Field School.

  • Tea Gardens to the Rescue

    Tea Gardens to the Rescue

    We switched to deploying our equipment for imaging faults and the structure beneath the surface to tea gardens to get away from power lines and buried the cables to protect them from gnawing foxes.

  • Dealing With Rain and Rats

    Dealing With Rain and Rats

    As we continued our geophysical measurements, we had to deal with heavy rains, flooding fields, and rats and foxes biting our cables. Many cables were broken soon after sunset, ruining the measurements.

  • Fieldwork in Bangladesh During the End of Ramadan and Eid Festival

    Fieldwork in Bangladesh During the End of Ramadan and Eid Festival

    We have come to in Bangladesh in the pre-monsoon heat to better image the active faults beneath the surface using electromagnetic instruments. We are using the fallow fields from the just-harvested rice crop for our sites.

  • The Matterhorn: Alive With Vibrational Energy

    The Matterhorn: Alive With Vibrational Energy

    In a recent study, researchers found that the Matterhorn is constantly swaying to the seismic energy of earthquakes and ocean tremors felt around the world.

Collage of Turkiye beach scene and Columbia University Campus with text: UN Climate Change Conference COP31, Antalya, Turkiye, Nov 9-20, 2026

COP31, the 2026 United Nations Climate Change Conference, aims to advance dialogue, strengthen consensus, and accelerate climate action on a global scale. From November 9–20, 2026 in Antalya, Türkiye, heads of state, ministers, scientists, business leaders, and civil society will gather to advance efforts in emission targets, climate finance, and adaptation and resilience. Once again, our experts, students, and global thought leaders from Columbia Climate School and across Columbia University are contributing to key events, sharing insights, and helping shape the dialogue toward ambitious, science-based solutions. Learn More

  • Gauging Losses and Lessons in Turkey’s Unfolding Earthquake Tragedy

    Gauging Losses and Lessons in Turkey’s Unfolding Earthquake Tragedy

    As earthquake engineers stress, most of the time, buildings kill people, not the shaking itself. It’s exceedingly hard to unbuild, move back, or retrofit buildings at scale.

  • Balancing Act: Can Precariously Perched Boulders Signal New York’s Earthquake Risk?

    Balancing Act: Can Precariously Perched Boulders Signal New York’s Earthquake Risk?

    Long ago, melting glaciers dropped giant boulders onto surfaces in the New York City exurbs, and many seem to remain in their original, delicately balanced positions. Can they be used to judge the maximum sizes of past earthquakes?

  • Looking for the Origin of Slow Earthquakes in the Guerrero Gap

    Looking for the Origin of Slow Earthquakes in the Guerrero Gap

    We are underway on our 48-day long expedition offshore of the west coast of Mexico near Acapulco, where the young Cocos oceanic plate dives beneath the North American plate.

  • Sylhet City, Geology, and Packing Up

    Sylhet City, Geology, and Packing Up

    We finished our electromagnetic survey and mini-field school in northern Sylhet, Bangladesh, with lectures and field trips to see the geology by car and boat.

  • Start of the Mini-Field School

    Start of the Mini-Field School

    We were joined in our electromagnetic investigation of the subsurface and earthquake hazard by a group of US and Bangladeshi students and professors for a mini-Field School.

  • Tea Gardens to the Rescue

    Tea Gardens to the Rescue

    We switched to deploying our equipment for imaging faults and the structure beneath the surface to tea gardens to get away from power lines and buried the cables to protect them from gnawing foxes.

  • Dealing With Rain and Rats

    Dealing With Rain and Rats

    As we continued our geophysical measurements, we had to deal with heavy rains, flooding fields, and rats and foxes biting our cables. Many cables were broken soon after sunset, ruining the measurements.

  • Fieldwork in Bangladesh During the End of Ramadan and Eid Festival

    Fieldwork in Bangladesh During the End of Ramadan and Eid Festival

    We have come to in Bangladesh in the pre-monsoon heat to better image the active faults beneath the surface using electromagnetic instruments. We are using the fallow fields from the just-harvested rice crop for our sites.

  • The Matterhorn: Alive With Vibrational Energy

    The Matterhorn: Alive With Vibrational Energy

    In a recent study, researchers found that the Matterhorn is constantly swaying to the seismic energy of earthquakes and ocean tremors felt around the world.