Lessons from the recent publication scams

The article discusses growing number of scams by agencies, scientists and editors in publishing industry of China. It states that an authorship fee ranging from 1,600 dollars to 26,300 dollars, in journals indexed by Thomson Reuter's Science Citation Index, Thomson Reuter's Social Science Citation Index and Elsevier's Engineering Index. It mentions that that talent based system in academia can also motivate scientists to wrongly inflate their findings

Tectonic geomorphology of the eastern extent of the Kashmir Basin Fault (KBF) zone

The Kashmir Basin Fault (KBF) is exposed as a train of discontinuous active fault traces for a strike length of ~120 km (Shah, 2013), in Kashmir, Himalayas. However, its eastern extent was not mapped previously and therefore, this study demonstrates that the active fault trace extends further east, where the geomorphic expression of active faulting is clear for a distance of ~43 km. The fault shows a very prominent dextral strike-slip motion with little to no dip-slip component associated with it, particularly, on the easternmost portion. Further west it mainly shows dip-slip motion with a slight indication of dextral strike-slip. This new active fault trace extends the total strike length of the KBF zone to ~163 km, which has implications for seismic hazard and the distribution of deformation along the NW portion of the Himalayas

Active fault study along foothill zone of Kumaun sub-Himalaya: Influence on landscape shaping and drainage evolution

The Kumaun Sub-Himalaya region is one of the most active regions falling into Seismic Zone V along the Himalaya. The geomorphology and drainage patterns in the area of active faulting and related growing fold provide significant information on the ongoing tectonic activity. The Kaladungi Fault (KF), an imbricated thrust fault of the Himalayan Frontal Thrust system provides an excellent example of forward and lateral propagation of fault and related folding in both directions along the strike of the fault. The KF has displaced the distal part of the Kaladungi fan surface resulting into formation of south-facing active fault scarp with variable heights along the front. In the east, the uplifted fan surface is ~ 60 m, is comparatively higher in the central part with height of ~ 200 m and ~ 80 m high in the west. The variation in heights along the fault is attributed to lateral propagation of fault and associated fold in both directions (i.e. east and west) from the centre. These clearly testify displacement starting at nucleation in the centre and propagating laterally in an elliptical manner. The northwest and southeast propagation of KF has resulted into diversion of the Dabka and Baur rivers respectively. A marked diversion of the modern Dabka river along its present course from east to west can be traced between Shivlalpur and Karampurtowns, covering a distance of about 10–12 km. Similarly, the Baur river is shifted from west to east by about 5–6 km between Kamola and Kaladungi towns. The diversion of Dabka and Baur rivers can well be justified by the existence of palaeo-wind-gaps through which these rivers flowed earlier during the recent past. The wind-gaps are characterized by about 0.5–1.0 km wide incised valley extending in NE–SWdirection between Kaladungi and Karampur along the frontal zone

Earthquake Education Through the Use of Documentary Movies

Unscientific, false, inaccurate and/or exaggerated reporting about anything in media or other platforms is a serious concern that needs a solution. This is particularly important when reporting about disasters (e.g., earthquakes). The lack of authentic scientific input into about science news reporting may can lead to news disasters, which may can prove to be much more critical and dangerous than say -earthquake disasters. Therefore, this paper explores such a this problem in a portion of NW Borneo and offers solution to improve the existing norms on the earthquake science, education and awareness programs in SE Asia. The explored field location is Sabah, Malaysia, which is targeted to map the level of earthquake science education and awareness of local people, and to examine the co-seismic deformation associated with the 5th June, 2015 earthquake. This event has surprised the local communities because the region is geographically located away from the active tectonic plate boundaries, and has traditionally been considered a low earthquake risk region. This is in contrast to the existence of high earthquake hazard and risk regions in the neighboring Indonesia and the Philippines. Therefore, not surprisingly, the residents of Borneo where puzzled, surprised, and worried when a medium magnitude earthquake occurred and caused significant loss of life and property. The lack of scientific education on the causes, and remedies of earthquake hazards in most of the South and Southeast Asian regions is a reality, which needs a proper solution. Therefore, through this work a small initiative has been started in Sabah, Malaysia where stories from the earthquake victims were recorded after the devastation caused by the June 2015 earthquake. Their real time experiences were blended with the updated scientific data on the occurrence of earthquakes in Borneo, which are mostly gathered from previously published works and the work presented here. The entire work is converted into a small documentary movie that highlights the causes of earthquakes and how it impacts human life

Comment on: “Macroseismic intensity assessment of 1885 Baramulla Earthquake of northwestern Kashmir Himalaya, using the Environmental Seismic Intensity scale (ESI 2007)” by Ahmad et al., 2013

This comment raises some scientific concerns regarding one of a recent publications in Quaternary International entitled “Macroseismic intensity assessment of 1885 Baramulla Earthquake of northwestern Kashmir Himalaya, using the Environmental Seismic Intensity scale (ESI 2007)” by Amad et al., 2013 (Article in Press). The authors have allegedly re-evaluated the historical reports of the 1885 Baramulla Earthquake of NW Kashmir by conducting extensive field investigations on those sites where environmental effects from the historical earthquake were reported. Thus, both primary (surface rupture) and secondary effects were studied and an ESI intensity of X was estimated for the epicentral area. However, the presented primary effects, on which the core of the contribution stands, are taken from Neve, 1928 and Jones, 1885 (cited in the prose) and provided secondary effects are not supported by any evidence(s). In my opinion the authors have not produced any new evidence to contradict or support the historical data

Lessons from the Italian court verdict on earthquake risk assessment

No abstract available.Published versio