Category Archives: COMET news

Edna Dualeh: 2024 Willy Aspinall Prize

 

VMSG has recently announced its 2024 award winners and we are delighted to announce that COMET staff researcher Edna Dualeh has been named as the recipient of the 2024 Willy Aspinall Prize for an outstanding paper on applied volcanology.

Edna’s work on St. Vincent was part of her PhD with COMET Scientist Susanna Ebmeier and COMET Director, Tim Wright both based at the University of Leeds.

You can read Edna’s winning paper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl

Huge congratulations to Edna from all your colleagues at COMET!

ESA–EGU 2023 Excellence Award winner Dr Susanna Ebmeier

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COMET scientist, Dr Susanna Ebmeier has been recognised at the European Space Agency (ESA)-European Geosciences Union (EGU) excellence awards.

The awards celebrate the innovative use of Earth observation data.

Dr Ebmeier, from the University of Leeds, won the individual award for her work using satellite images to further the scientific understanding of volcanic processes.

Satellite technology means researchers can take measurements that show how the Earth’s surface is moving in volcanic areas with a precision of a few millimetres.

That information means that Dr Ebmeier and her colleagues are able to see how molten rock is moving beneath the Earth’s surface, as well as learn about the growth and stability of volcanoes themselves.

The prize winners, from across Europe, have been celebrated at the EGU’s General Assembly which took place in Vienna on 25 April.

Congratulations to Susi from all your COMET colleagues!

Read more about the ESA-EGU awards.

Türkiye-Syria Earthquakes, February 2023 

On 6 February, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck the East Anatolian Fault affecting large areas of Southern Türkiye and Northern Syria. This was followed by a 7.5-magnitude event approximately 9 hours later, around 60 miles to the north. To date more than 37,000 people are confirmed to have died, large numbers of people are affected across the region and the damage to buildings and infrastructure is significant.   

Images from ESA’s Sentinel-1A satellite captured on 9/10 February clearly showed the physical effects of the earthquake on the ground, including deformation of up to 6 metres along a 300km section of the fault, and the second event causing a second ~125km rupture. Many population centres sit close to these zones, explaining the significant human impact of the event.  

By combining Sentinel-1A imagery from before and after the earthquake, COMET scientists have been able to measure surface deformation that is clearly visible in InSAR and pixel offset tracking data sets shown below: 

In addition to the results from the satellite radar data, we have also used the pre- and post-event optical images from Sentinel-2 to estimate ground movement in the earthquakes also using pixel tracking: 

The processing outputs from Sentinel-1A data are available for download at our LiCSAR system event page. The results from Sentinel-2 are available here. 

The images above contain modified Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data analysed by the Centre for the Observation and Modelling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tectonics (COMET). Data processing uses JASMIN, the UK’s collaborative data analysis environment (http://jasmin.ac.uk). 

For more information on why and how COMET responds to earthquake events read this article by our Director – Professor Tim Wright. 

COMET – 14 February 2023 

International Women & Girls in Science Day 2023

 

This year, COMET celebrates International Women & Girls in Science Day 2023 by promoting some of the high-quality science that women have achieved, as part of and in collaboration with members of COMET. We would also like to recognise and emphasise that women are still facing many barriers along their scientific career path. More information can be found on the UN website: https://www.un.org/en/observances/women-and-girls-in-science-day.

 

Zoe Mildon: Bullerwell Lecturer 2023

 

The BGA is delighted to announce that COMET associate, Dr. Zoe Mildon from University of Plymouth, is the Bullerwell Lecturer for 2023! Zoe’s research is focused on understanding tectonics, active faulting and earthquakes. She currently holds a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship investigating earthquake interaction and seismic hazard.

Congratulations Zoe!

Bullerwell Lecturer 2023 | The British Geophysical Association (geophysics.org.uk)

Dr Susanna Ebmeier awarded 2022 AGU John Wahr Early Career Award

 

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) has recently announced its 2022 section award winners and named lecturers.

We are delighted to announce that COMET scientist Dr Susanna Ebmeier has been named as the recipient of the 2022 John Wahr Early Career Award in the Geodesy section.

The John Wahr Early Career Award is presented annually and recognizes significant advances in geodetic science, technology, applications, observations, or theory.

The winners will be celebrated at the AGU Annual Meeting taking place 12 – 16 December 2022 in Chicago.

Huge congratulations to Susi from all colleagues within COMET.

2022 AGU Section Awardees and Named Lecturers – Eos

Tim Craig: Bullerwell Lecturer 2022

The BGA is delighted to announce that Dr Tim Craig from University of Leeds, is the Bullerwell Lecturer for 2022. The main focus of his research is the relation between intraplate earthquakes and tectonics. Tim completed his PhD in 2013 on the topic Constraining Lithosphere Rheology using Earthquake Seismology at Bullard Laboratories in University of Cambridge; this was followed by a PDRA position in pRais, before moving to Leeds in 2015.

Bullerwell Lecturer 2022 | The British Geophysical Association (geophysics.org.uk)

Congratulations Tim from all your colleagues at COMET!

Professor Gregory Houseman honoured with Fellowship of the Royal Society

Professor Gregory (Greg) Houseman, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics at the University of Leeds and Emeritus COMET Scientist, is amongst the outstanding and distinguished group of scientists who have been elected Fellows of the Royal Society this year 

This prestigious title is awarded to scientists who have made an exceptional contribution to science and Professor Houseman’s work is certainly deserving of this honour.  

Professor Houseman’s research has produced very significant and long-standing advances in geodynamics,  which clearly explain the relationship between the governing equations, their critical parameters and surface measurements.  His contributions to the field include showing how convective instabilities link convection and continental dynamics, testing predictions of density structure associated with lower lithosphere removal, and further demonstrating the relationship between the width and length of mountain belts.  Irecent years, his research has focused on developing new understanding of key geological problems in the deformation of the Earth’s crust and lithosphere through computer modelling of geological deformation, and using seismic arrays, natural earthquakes and seismic noise to map the 3-D structure of the lithosphere and upper mantle in tectonically active regions like Turkey and Eastern Europe 

Professor Houseman’s work demonstrates that when a continent thickens as tectonic plates converge, convective instabilities can remove the lower lithosphere. This increases the gravitational potential energy of the overlying continent, leading to changes in surface height, volcanism and deformation. This process is now recognised as a fundamental influence on geological activity.  By combining satellite observations of ground movement with numerical models at locations including the North Anatolian Fault in Turkey, he has also developed an improved understanding of the earthquake deformation cycle, which is leading towards a better assessment of future seismic hazard.  

The many honours bestowed on Professor Houseman for his important contributions to the field include the European Geophysical Union’s Augustus Love Medal (2015) and Fellowship of the American Geophysical Union (2001), where he was also elected Section President for Tectonophysics (2004-2006).  He has been a Fellow of the Institute of Physics since 2004, held a CIRES Fellowship at the University of Colorado at Boulder (2015) and was elected to Academia Europaea in 2016. 

COMET would like to congratulate Professor Houseman on receiving his Fellowship of the Royal Society! 

Harmony: Mission Candidate for the Earth Explorer 10

COMET scientists Professor Juliet Biggs (University of Bristol) and Professor Andy Hooper (University of Leeds) both serve on the Harmony Mission Advisory Group and are delighted to have been chosen to develop the concept further.

On February 18-19, ESA’s Programme Board for Earth Observation (PB-EO) decided on the continuation of the three Earth Explorer (EE) mission candidates towards the next phase in the path to their implementation. The three missions, namely, Daedalus, Hydroterra and Harmony, were selected in 2018 for a Phase-0 feasibility study out of 21 submitted proposals. The PB-EO has made now the unprecedented decision of selecting only one mission for Phase A, namely Harmony, instead of more than one as done in previous EE calls.

The Harmony mission is dedicated to the observation and quantification of small-scale motion and deformation fields at the air-sea interface (winds, waves, surface currents), of solid Earth (tectonic strain and height changes at volcanoes), and in the cryosphere (glacier flows and height changes). In order to achieve the different mission goals, the Harmony mission shall deploy two companion satellites following one of ESA’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellites. The companions will be flying in two different formations (see Figure 1): the stereo formation, with one Harmony satellite placed in front and one behind Sentinel-1, in both cases at a distance of about 350 km from it; and the cross-track formation, with both Harmony units flying close to each other (~200-500 m) also at 350 km from Sentinel-1. Each Harmony satellite carries as main payload a receive-only synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which shall acquire the reflected signals transmitted by Sentinel-1 towards the Earth. A multi-view thermal infra-red payload is also included to measure cloud height and cloud motion vectors. The angular diversity provided by the Harmonies in combination with Sentinel-1 will allow the retrieval of deformation measurements of the sea and earth surface with unprecedented accuracy (see Figure 2), while the cross-track configuration will allow the accurate measurement of elevation changes for land-ice and volcanic applications.

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1: Representation of the (left) stereo and (right) cross-track flying formations for Harmony. The Sentinel-1 satellite is depicted in black color. Sentinel-1 transmits a signal and acquires the backscattered echoes (represented with magenta arrows), while the Harmony satellites receive part of the energy that bounces towards them (represented with the green arrows). Copyright: Harmony Mission Advisory Group.

Dr. Paco López-Dekker from the Delft University of Technology and principal investigator of the Harmony mission, comments “It is very exciting that our multi static-SAR concept, which combines many ideas that were matured during my years at HR, has made it to this final stage. During Phase-0 we have drafted a beautiful and elegant mission concept promising an unprecedented view at Earth System processes. Now we have the responsibility to look at it from all sides and be sure that it will work. Challenging and fun.”

Professor Juliet Biggs from the University of Bristol and member of Harmony’s Mission Advisory Group at ESA adds “The Harmony mission is remarkable in that it promises new scientific discoveries across an astonishing breadth of topics: from the gradual motion of tectonic plates to small-scale processes on the ocean surface. I’m delighted that we have been selected to develop the concept further and that Harmony is one step closer to becoming a reality”

Dr. Pau Prats, from the German Aerospace Centre, DLR and member of Harmony’s Mission Advisory Group at ESA, is convinced of the benefits a mission like Harmony will bring to the community: “The unique configuration of the Harmony satellites in combination with Sentinel-1 will allow us to literally add a new dimension to SAR observations, a fact that will foster SAR technology and its applications during the next two decades.”

Figure 2: Coloured areas show regions straining at greater than 10 nanostrain per year (the threshold above which 95% of earthquake fatalities occur). Blue regions are those that have a small component of north-south strain and can be imaged by Sentinel-1 alone. Red regions indicate the extra area that will be constrained by Harmony. From Harmony Report for Assessment. 2020.  

So, what’s next? Even though Harmony is currently the only EE-10 mission candidate it does not mean it will be implemented. The industry and science teams have one and a half years of hard work ahead to demonstrate the mission has reached the technological and scientific level of maturity required to enter into the next phase, that will ultimately result in the launch of the Harmony satellites by the end of this decade.

Announcement can be found on ESA website: https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/ESA_moves_forward_with_Harmony

Title figure for the Harmony mission. Copyright: ESA.