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Minutes of the Business Meeting of the Asian Seismological Commission (ASC) at Santiago, Chile on October 6, 2005
The Business Meeting of the Asian Seismological Commission (ASC) was held on October 6, 2005 at Santiago, Chile during the IASPEI 2005. All the newly elected Bureau members and other participants from different countries attended the meeting. Prof. Zhu Chuanzhen and Dr. R.K.Chadha chaired the meeting. The following were present.
The meeting began with a two minutes silence in the memory of the past ASC President Prof. S. Basassannian who passed away last year in an automobile accident.
The President of the ASC Prof. Zhu Chuanzhen, in his opening remarks welcomed the participants and introduced the newly elected Bureau Members. Dr. R.K.Chadha, Secretary General in his opening remarks thanked the members of the ASC for electing him during the Armenian meeting and sought cooperation of all the bureau members and the participants, especially IASPEI, through Dr. B. Engdahl in running the affairs of the ASC activities. He informed the participants that ASC website will be launched shortly by the National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad as the Secretariat of the ASC has moved there. Later, Prof. Zhu Chuanzhen explained the current status of the Pilot Projects of the ASC, viz., Seismic Hazard evaluation in the developing countries, Seismic Risk Assessment and Hazard assessment for early warning. He praised the efforts made by the Prof. S. Balassanian for initiating the Pilot projects. The Bureau and the members of the ASC put on record their appreciation of the contributions of Prof. S. Balassanian’s efforts in developing the activities of the ASC. Prof. Zhu Chuanzhen informed the members about the initiatives to organize a special session by Dr. W. Mooney at ASC2006, which was greatly appreciated by the ASC Bureau and the members of the ASC.
The final item on the agenda was about the 6th ASC Assembly which is to be held in Bangkok in 2006. It was proposed to hold the Assembly for 4 days and the tentative dates were agreed from November 7-10, 2006. It was also suggested to organize a 5 days Training Course before the ASC meeting. In this regard, Prof.Peter Bormann offered his services and suggested that the depending on the requirement of the contents of the course, the training can be of either 1 or 2 weeks. Further, it was also suggested that support lectures could also be arranged through JICA, Japan. Prof. Wu Zhongliang strongly recommended that the training course should have a course on observational seismology as most of the persons working in the developing countries needs training in this field. The following time schedule was agreed for the ASC 2006.
Detailed discussions were held on the draft Budget for the ASC 2006. Dr. Sumalee Prachuab made a presentation on the ASC 2006. She provided a list of persons on the LOC for the Assembly. She projected a draft budget of US$30,000 from the IASPEI in addition to the money to be raised by the LOC. Responding to this, Dr. Bob Engdahl, President of IASPEI promised to provide funds from IASPEI up to a maximum of US$10,000 and an additional support from IUGG of US$3000-5000. He also suggested LOC should raise funds through sponsorship in Thailand, from exhibitors, seismic instruments suppliers. Dr. B. Engdahl also advised to invite all the organizations involved in IOC Tsunami Warning System to the ASC 2006. Prof. Zhu Chuanzhen suggested the LOC to approach Bill Gates Foundation for funds up to US$25,000 as they support and encourage such activities in the developing countries. Suggestions were also made to explore various funding sources like Nippon Foundation, Japan, Asian Development Bank, USTDA etc. There was a unanimous agreement about the Registration Fee for the ASC 2006 as US$200/participant.
The following scientific themes were identified for the ASC 2006.
1. SUBDUCTION ZONE SEISMOLOGY AND TSUNAMI i) December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami ii) Seismotectonic of subduction zones and Volcanology iii) Simulation and modeling iv) Inundation, runup heights and hazard maps v) Early Warning Systems vi) Education and Capacity Building
2. STRONG MOTION SEISMOLOGY i) Source Physics ii) Strong motion and earthquake hazard and risk assessment iii) Methods and techniques in Strong Motion hazard analysis iv) Microzonation
3. EARTHQUAKE FORECASTING i) Earthquake precursors ii) Triggered earthquakes iii) Paleoseismology iv) GPS measurements v) Seismotectonics vi) New concepts, fractals, chaos, self-organized criticality
4. MANAGEMENT/REDUCTION OF RISK i) Seismic Risk mitigation measures ii) Education on earthquake Hazard assessment and Risk Mitigation
5. OBSERVATIONAL SEISMOLOGY
Discussions were also held to identify the Keynote speakers and it was suggested that each of the above topics should have one keynote lecture. It was also agreed that that the International Advisory Committee of the ASC 2006 will suggest the keynote speakers and also conveners of the scientific sessions.
The participants made few other observations. Dr. Gary Gibson while appreciating the efforts of the Pilot projects of ASC suggested that it would be better that Seismic Hazard should be taken up in the individual countries. He said that the information on this is available but it is no organized, so it would be better to develop a database for such an endeavor. He also suggested to revive the Newsletter of the ASC and circulate electronically, giving useful and interesting information. Dr. David Rhoades made a very valuable suggestion that ASC should have a proper structure to handle money for ASC activities. Prof. Zhu Chuanzhen informed the participants that he will find out from Armenia about the funds received by the late Prof. S. Balassannian which he received from the IASPEI for the Pilot projects. Dr. D. Rhoades further suggested that cooperative projects should be taken up in future instead of formulating Pilot projects on a regional level.
In the end, Prof. Zhu Chuanzhen advised Dr. Sumalee Prachuab to contact Dr. Chadha for any advise about the arrangements for the ASC 2006 in Bangkok. The meeting ended with thanks from the Chair.
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