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Luca Malatesta

@geoluca.bsky.social
1.4K followers 613 following 320 posts

Geologist at GFZ and Tohoku University. Interested in all things tectonic and climatic geomorphology. www.gfz-potsdam.de/en/staff/luca.ma… ORCID orcid.org/0000-0003-0983-715X

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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
The footage is covered in the media here and AFAIK the original files have been copied. ✅
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Of course! more rapid reports from IRIDeS can be found here: irides.tohoku.ac.jp/research/pro... (In Japanese but it should be ok to navigate with browser translation). It’s worth checking the IRIDeS website after EQs in Japan. Reports from public health to seismology are usually posted there.
irides.tohoku.ac.jp
令和8年熊本地震| 東北大学 災害科学国際研究所
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
At that location, the surface rupture deviates NE from the main trend and there is a greater extensional component. In the report linked above, you can see the deviations from the main strike in Fig. 2. But overall yes it is dextral with a dip slip component west (hanging wall) down
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Another interesting observation is that we are here near the southern end of the rupture, little less than 15km south of epicenter, we see how the shaking precedes the rupture propagation.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Very interesting, thanks for the clip. At that site, we measured 90cm drop to the west and 105cm fault parallel. Report here: irides.tohoku.ac.jp/media/files/... And a colleague found the likely original footage on threads: www.threads.com/@m.m.s.k.a.a...
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
That sounds quite reasonable. The hill behind is not very steep nor tall, but there might be just enough relief to explain slump toe features as you suggest.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
And they also place the epicenter of the second quake further east, much closer to Caracas: bsky.app/profile/geof...
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
The main shock has now been placed further east, close to Caracas by @geofon.bsky.social . Which I think would relate it to the San Sebastian Fault, east of the Bocono Fault(?) bsky.app/profile/geof...
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Night and day.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
At Pinnacles NP, a condor landed right next to me as I was taking a break! Couldn’t believe my luck! Big big fellow.
California condor
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
Arrived in Christchurch, and in summer, for the IAG conference. Good vibes all around.
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Prof Helen Bostock @oceanhelen.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Nice Keynote to start day 2 of #ISC2026 from Prof Kyoto Kataoka using sediment cores from lakes and basins to study the volcanic activity from Japanese volcanoes. Looking at tephra, lahar and a range of volcanic erupt I’ve outputs - shows a much more complex and comprehensive volcanic history.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
Fuji san upon arrival last Friday. 65x24 🗻
An airplane panoramic view of Mt Fuji and surrounding. The summit is coated in white snow.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Trichromatic de-icing with Trichromy from @heliographe.studio
A de icing machine sprays the wing of an aircraft
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
Mass start at the Neues Palais in Potsdam
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Dr. Alice-Agnes Gabriel @inseismoland.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
A new preprint, led by Bar Oryan, introduces the Coupling Cloud: a community database that curates, standardizes, documents, and disseminates published kinematic coupling models inverted from geodetic data. As of today it brings together 96 coupling datasets drawn from 55 publications spanning
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Frederik Tilmann has published an interesting post about the development of `latexdiff` since 2004 as version 1.4.0 is just released. Besides `latexdiff` Frederik also busies himself with being a professor of seismology. www.linkedin.com/pulse/some-r...
The regular expression to split text into tokens before identifying and grouping changes. By Frederik Tilmann.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
These cumulative energy release plots are always great visuals
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Jason "Jay" R. Patton @earthjay.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
#EarthquakeReport for 2025 Annual Year in #Earthquakes and #Tsunami See summaries and interpretive posters for 13 earthquakes from 2025 See cumulative energy release plots for M≥6.5 earthquakes from 2017-2025 earthjay.com?page_id=12459
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
Fog streams. Mont Blanc in the top left.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
Mt Blanc in late afternoon light from the Jura
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
Fog streams. Mont Blanc in the top left.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
Beautiful. Missing it. everything remains so crisp in the distance.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
Ho ho ho, Daisuke Ishimura @daisukeishimura.bsky.social has joined bluesky! 🎄 (pssst @earthjay.bsky.social )
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
There might be some use in finding answers to a set question. But less in realising that there was a better question. That latter exercise is the hard part.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
I should actually check with Alessio if the terraces on Noto Peninsula are relevant for WALIS (we will soon have radiometric ages for 5e). also working on digitizing all 7k+ 🗾MIS5e terraces from Koike and Machida (2001) Atlas. But only few have radiometric control. bsky.app/profile/geol...
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
Realizing now that by traveling southwest from Berlin to Switzerland, I bought myself an extra 55 minutes of daylight on solstice day!
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
We'd have loved to share this at #AGU25 With marine terraces (4767 platforms 🖱️💪Nina!) spanning the last Myr we show that the faults of the Noto Peninsula EQ started slipping around 300 ka. A landscape evol. model explains the transient topography of the peninsula. 1/3 doi.org/10.1029/2025...
Map of the Noto Peninsula and Sado Island in Central Japan
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
The digitized marine terrace dataset can be downloaded as a shapefile on Zenodo (🔗 below). 4767 individual platforms distributed across 16 generations from the Atlas of Koike and Machida (2001). Maybe the most extensive erosive terrace record at a single site? 3/3 doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
The Noto Peninsula overlain with a shapefile of 4767 terrace units.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
The EQ faults (& scarp) are drowned by the current high stand. Nearby Sado Island shares similar deformation record and is flanked by a similar nearshore scarp. It is the potential location of a large fault system initially suggested by Ota Yoko in 1992 (she was 🎯). 2/3
Two slope maps of the bathymetry around the Noto Peninsula and Sado Island highlighting the location of a nearshore scarp.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
We'd have loved to share this at #AGU25 With marine terraces (4767 platforms 🖱️💪Nina!) spanning the last Myr we show that the faults of the Noto Peninsula EQ started slipping around 300 ka. A landscape evol. model explains the transient topography of the peninsula. 1/3 doi.org/10.1029/2025...
Map of the Noto Peninsula and Sado Island in Central Japan
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Dominic Manchee @dpmanchee.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
Very impressive. Timelapse via #Copernicus Browser link.dataspace.copernicus.eu/xvxi
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Shaking was strong, up to shindo 6+. I imagine that liquefaction is a bigger concern. We will know more in the morning. NHK reports 6 injured in Aomori prefecture (falling objects and falls). 2/2
Japan meteorological Agency map showing the shindo intensity.JMA explanation of the shindo scale
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Fortunately, the M7.6 earthquake struck at low tide, reducing the impact of the tsunami (itself smaller than feared, max 70cm observed). 1/2
screen shot of the Japan Meteorological Agency's tsunami advisory with added location of Kushiro and OfunatoTide gauge at Kushiro showing tsunami arrival at low tide. Tsunami is ca. 0.25 m.Tide gauge at Ofunato showing tsunami arrival at low tide. Tsunami is ca. 0.3 m.
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Jascha Polet @jascha.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
Also, you should really check out Kilauea right now! ⚒️🌋 www.youtube.com/live/tk0tfYD...
Current screenshot of Kilauea USGS webcam
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
North of the Bering Strait earlier today. First Northern Lights for me!
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
It makes a whole lot of sense yes, the coastal slope hosting the initial road is very landslide prone. (Actually the initial road has been wiped down). Google map has been updated, but the satellite images are still pre-EQ. Free flat land!
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
On Noto Peninsula where coseismic uplift was ~2m. Sequence pre-earthquake, EQ +3 months, EQ +23 months. I thought we would be able to monitor this nice flat surface for weathering efficiency over the years…
Noto coast in Nov. 2023. 
Waves come all the way up to a concrete embankment protecting a cliffNoto Coast after 2 m coseismic uplift.
100 m wide rock platform is now emergedA road is now built on the bedrock platform, protected by a new sea wall
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
🙌🏻
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Noto Earthquake and submarine landscape. After a loooong time looking for reviewers, we received good critical comments which led to notable revisions. Now back in review at GRL hoping that the 2nd round will be shorter than the 6 months of the first: doi.org/10.31223/X53...
doi.org
Landscape signature of seismogenic faults in the off- and onshore domains of the Noto Peninsula in Japan’s back-arc
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
He is still on the other place. But I’ll pass the message. I just saw him on Tuesday. It would be nice to read his posts again!
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
Larches in the fall ☺️ Magnificent trees
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Kamil Ustaszewski @wukaimi.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
@sumikotsuka.bsky.social and I are looking for a postdoc (2 yrs) to work w/ us at @uni-jena.de and LIAG Hannover on constraining exhumation rates in #Albania using calcite/dolomite thermoluminescence thermochronology. www.structures.uni-jena.de/en/1012/open.... @paleoseismicity.bsky.social @dfg.de
structures.uni-jena.de
Open Postdoc position
two-years full-time postdoc position open in our team, starting 1 January, 2026.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
Ha! What a neat little app. Makes you pay attention to relative speeds around you
Train tracks and train In front of a building. Moving Train is rendered in three successive shots in R G and B.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
We'll try a 360º camera to document field sites google-streetview-style and to plunge it under our kayak looking for faults. In the meantime, enjoy this gimmicky autumnal snapshot @gfz.bsky.social .
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Researchers at Toyama and Kanazawa Universities deployed a ROV to document the earthquake scarp offshore of the Noto Peninsula, here is their video summary. Very cool images of underwater splay faults! youtu.be/QaIw5PgXZkc?...
youtu.be
【令和6年能登半島地震】能登半島北部沿岸海域「海域活断層」の実態
YouTube video by TOYAMA BAY Lab
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
I was thinking about that same (relatively small) PNG landslide that had also initially reportedly caused a very large number of casualties en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_En...
en.wikipedia.org
2024 Enga landslide - Wikipedia
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Full resignation letter from Demetre C. Daskalakis, a CDC leader, does not hold back. "The recent shooting at CDC is not why I am resigning. My grandfather, who I am named after, stood up to fascist forces in Greece and lost his life doing so. I am resigning to make him and his legacy proud."
My resignation letter from CDC.  

Dear Dr. Houry,

I am writing to formally resign from my position as Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), effective August 28, 2025, close of business.   I am happy to stay on for two weeks to provide transition, if requested.

This decision has not come easily, as I deeply value the work that the CDC does in safeguarding public health and am proud of my contributions to that critical mission. However, after much contemplation and reflection on recent developments and perspectives brought to light by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I find that the views he and his staff have shared challenge my ability to continue in my current role at the agency and in the service of the health of the American people. Enough is enough.

While I hold immense respect for the institution and my colleagues, I believe that it is imperative to align my professional responsibilities to my system of ethics and my understanding of the science of infectious disease, immunology, and my promise to serve the American people.  This step is necessary to ensure that I can contribute effectively in a capacity that allows me to remain true to my principles.

The recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people.   The data analyses that supported this decision have never been shared with CDC despite my respectful requests to HHS and other leadership.  This lack of meaningful engagement was further compounded by a “frequently asked questions” document written to support the Secretary’s directive that was circulated by HHS without input from CDC subject matter experts and that cited studies that did not support the conclusions that were attributed to these authors.  Having worked in local and national public health for years, I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end rather than the good of the American people.

It is untenable to serve in an organization that is not afforded the opportunity to discuss decisions of scientific and public health importance released under the moniker of CDC.  The lack of communication by HHS and other CDC political leadership that culminates in social media posts announcing major policy changes without prior notice demonstrate a disregard of normal communication channels and common sense.  Having to retrofit analyses and policy actions to match inadequately thought-out announcements in poorly scripted videos or page long X posts should not be how organizations responsible for the health of people should function.  Some examples include the announcement of the change in the COVID-19 recommendations for children and pregnant people, the firing of scientists from ACIP by X post and an op-ed rather than direct communication with these valuable experts, the announcement of new ACIP members by X before onboarding and vetting have completed, and the release of term of reference for an ACIP workgroup that ignored all feedback from career staff at CDC.
Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults.  Their base should be the people they serve not a political voting bloc.

I have always been first to challenge scientific and public health dogma in my career and was excited by the opportunity to do so again.  I was optimistic that there would be an opportunity to brief the Secretary about key topics such as measles, avian influenza, and the highly coordinated approach to the respiratory virus season.  Such briefings would allow exchange of ideas and a shared path to support the vision of “Making America Healthy Again.”  We are seven months into the new administration, and no CDC subject matter expert from my Center has ever briefed the Secretary.  I am not sure who the Secretary is listening to, but it is quite certainly not to us.  Unvetted and conflicted outside organizations seem to be the sources HHS use over the gold standard science of CDC and other reputable sources.  At a hearing, Secretary Kennedy said that Americans should not take medical advice from him.  To the contrary, an appropriately briefed and inquisitive Secretary should be a source of health information for the people he serves. As it stands now, I must agree with him, that he should not be considered a source of accurate information.

The intentional eroding of trust in low-risk vaccines favoring natural infection and unproven remedies will bring us to a pre-vaccine era where only the strong will survive and many if not all will suffer.  I believe in nutrition and exercise.  I believe in making our food supply healthier, and I also believe in using vaccines to prevent death and disability.  Eugenics plays prominently in the rhetoric being generated and is derivative of a legacy that good medicine and science should continue to shun.The recent shooting at CDC is not why I am resigning.  My grandfather, who I am named after, stood up to fascist forces in Greece and lost his life doing so.  I am resigning to make him and his legacy proud.   I am resigning because of the cowardice of a leader that cannot admit that HIS and his minions’ words over decades created an environment where violence like this can occur.  I reject his and his colleagues’ thoughts and prayers, and advise they direct those to people that they have not actively harmed.

For decades, I have been a trusted voice for the LGBTQ community when it comes to critical health topics.  I must also cite the recklessness of the administration in their efforts to erase transgender populations, cease critical domestic and international HIV programming, and terminate key research to support equity as part of my decision.

Public health is not merely about the health of the individual, but it is about the health of the community, the nation, the world. The nation’s health security is at risk and is in the hands of people focusing on ideological self-interest.

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for the opportunities for growth, learning, and collaboration that I have been afforded during my time at the CDC. It has been a privilege to work alongside such dedicated professionals who are committed to improving the health and well-being of communities across the nation even when under attack from within both physically and psychologically.

Thank you once again for the support and guidance I have received from you and previous CDC leadership throughout my tenure. I wish the CDC continued success in its vital mission and that HHS reverse its dangerous course to dismantle public health as a practice and as an institution.  If they continue the current path, they risk our personal well-being and the security of the United States.
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Luca Malatesta @geoluca.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
It first seemed like Europe claimed to define itself in contrast to US funding cuts. But the drop in concurrence was just an opportunity to lower costs as well.
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