A Â鶹´«Ã½ academic has been awarded £1.1million to develop a new means of modelling all aspects of the earthquake cycle.
Dr Zoë Mildon, Lecturer in Earth Sciences, is among 101 researchers selected to receive one of UK Research and Innovation’s Future Leaders Fellowships.
Her four-year project will aim to unite the fields of geology, physics and computer science to generate a new multi-disciplinary way of calculating earthquake hazard.
This will enable her to generate synthetic earthquake simulations based on actual geological data, such as the shape of faults and their rate of movement, which can in turn be used to provide an all-encompassing picture of physical factors that trigger an earthquake and the devastation it may cause.
While the research – involving partners in the UK, France, Germany and Italy and an international risk insurance company – will not directly enable scientists to predict earthquakes, it will provide greater insight into the natural variability in the size, location and timing of damaging events on particular faults.
The research will also focus on studying complex earthquakes and sequences when multiple faults move and cause earthquakes in a short space of time.