Preface: Marine and Lake Paleoseismology

This special issue of Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS) contains 16 papers that resulted from the European Science Foundation (ESF) Research Conference “Submarine Paleoseismology: The Offshore Search of Large Holocene Earthquakes” that was held at the Universitätszentrum Obergurgl (Austria), from 11 to 16 September 2010 (Pantosti et al., 2011). The conference enabled scientists from a number of existing lines of research to give an official start and international recognition to subaqueous paleoseismology. The scope of this Special Issue is built on the content of the ESF conference and includes different aspects of marine and lake paleoseismology. The 16 papers are separated into two main groups, namely, on-fault or off-fault paleoseismic studies. On-fault paleoseismology focuses on the observation, measurement and quantification of history of movements along the fault plane, where direct evidence of earthquake activity includes displacement of sediment strata and landforms such as seafloor scarps (Argnani et al., 2012; Beck et al., 2012; Gràcia et al., 2012; Perea et al., 2012; Polonia et al., 2012). Off-fault paleoseismology uses the sedimentary record to identify deposits generated, directly or indirectly by seismic activity, such as mass-transport deposits, turbidites and tsunamites (Drab et al., 2012; Morey et al., 2013; Cattaneo et al., 2012; Gerardi et al., 2012; Goldfinger et al., 2013b; Langridge et al., 2012; Nelson et al., 2012; Patton et al., 2013; Pouderoux et al., 2012a; Smedile et al., 2012; Vacchi et al., 2012).