We are repeating here the message we sent on Friday for 
those who cannot read attachements.

*****
Colleagues

I would greatly appreciate your urgent help. Do you know of a student who
would like to carry out Ph.D. studies on the subject "Time-varying seismic
hazard: clustering, cyclicity and maximum earthquakes"? See attached for
more details. If you do know the "right" person then please let me know how
to contact them, or have them contact me.

This is a NERC studentship. The student I had decided after 5 weeks that
academia was not for them and so would take up a management course instead.
I am now, therefore, trying to recoup this studentship.

Incidentally, a travel grant (to China) accompanies this project.

I'd be glad of your suggestions.

Paul Burton

++++++++++

STUDENTSHIP PROPOSAL (1999 for 2000)

Time-varying seismic hazard: clustering, cyclicity and 
maximum earthquakes

The need to protect communities and investment from major 
losses caused by earthquake has become increasingly 
apparent with moderately damaging earthquakes even in 
western Europe (Roermond in Holland, Liege in Belgium) and 
several devastating earthquakes occurring world-wide in 
recent years (Taiwan, Athens, Izmit in Turkey, Kobe in 
Japan etc.).  

Practical and theoretical difficulties with short-term 
earthquake prediction have refocused efforts on to seismic 
hazard assessment for long-term earthquake potential in a 
region (time independent model), on to identifying long to 
medium term time dependencies in the hazard variations 
(with the possibility of determining cyclicity in 
earthquake occurrence), and in earthquake early warning 
systems (not prediction - monitoring earthquake occurrence 
and then exploiting the velocity difference between seismic 
waves and electromagnetic waves to forward a warning of 
imminent arrival of strong ground vibration following an 
earthquake).

In this project the student will study the potential for 
episodic losses due to earthquake occurrences. The methods 
will embrace non-Poissonian statistics and modern fractal 
approaches for probabilistic analyses designed to assess 
clustering. Alternative non-probabilistic models of 
earthquake strain energy release will also be explored to 
analyse cyclicity and maximum earthquake potential, and 
methods compared. The areas considered will span a range of 
tectonic settings, patterns of seismicity, and different 
strain rates from low to high, and different degrees of 
completeness of historical earthquake completeness. 
Analyses and comparisons will be established for 
northwestern Europe (low seismicity) and southern Europe 
(Italy and Greece, representing moderate to high 
seismicity) within a pan-European context, and extended to 
regions of high seismicity (e.g. northern India, China, and 
Pacific Rim).

The research will require persons with a strong background 
in geophysics, physics or mathematics, and they will 
acquire an understanding of environmental seismology and 
seismotectonics. They will be supervised by Dr. Paul Burton 
(School of Environmental Sciences) in collaboration with 
Dr. Louise Swift (School of Mathematics).  
In the first instance an interested student should contact 
Dr Paul Burton, School of Environmental Sciences, 
University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK (email: 
[log in to unmask]) or leave details with Rosie Cullington 
(tel. +44-1603-592560; email:  [log in to unmask]).

*************************************************
Miss Rosie Cullington
Faculty Secretary
School of Environmental Sciences
University of East Anglia
Norwich  NR4 7TJ  UK
Tel. +44 (0)1603 592560
Fax. +44 (0)1603 507719/507714
Email. [log in to unmask]
Room 01.30 ENV
Office Hours 08.30-16.30 BST/GMT
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