Seismologists at Washington University in St. Louis and their colleagues in Australia, Japan and Tonga have determined why a large earthquake in Tonga did not cause a large tsunami. A tsunami warning was issued around the Pacific Rim following the magnitude 8.0 earthquake on May 3, 2006, but the resulting tsunami was very minor and caused no damage.

A seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis has made the first 3-D model of seismic wave damping - diminishing - deep in the Earth's mantle and has revealed the existence of an underground water reservoir at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean.

The new method of analysis makes it possible to estimate the complete stress tensor and monitor changes in the magnitude of stress and the instability of faults, which roots the analysis in physics in a manner that earthquake methods normally lack. This makes the method more generally valid, thus facilitating efforts to provide warnings.

The great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake of 2004 is the best recorded large earthquake in history and has revealed the extent of study still necessary to understand such devastating events. New data overturn the commonly held view that great earthquakes only occur in fast, young subduction zones.

Research at the University of Liverpool into a large fault zone in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile has produced new insight into how fluid pressure can cause earthquakes