Newsletter - 1

Dear Colleagues,

This is the first "newsletter“ of the newly founded informal International Working Group on Rotational Seismology (IWGoRS). You are receiving this mail either because you are already a registered member of IWGoRS, or you have shown interest in rotational motions, e.g., by submitting an abstract to our recent AGU session, or you have been identified as a person who might be interested. The main goals of this newsletter are to: (1) get the E-mail list started, (2) briefly introduce the IWGoRS, (3) briefly report on the AGU session and inauguration lunch, and (4) announce open positions.
Note that unless you are already a formal member of the IWGoRS mail list, or you join (details see below) you will no longer receive any further information.

1. Joining IWGoRS mailing list
If you are not yet a member, and you wish to become a member, or just to receive information on our activities, please spend a minute and register by visiting our website at: http://www.rotational-seismology.org or by directly linking to: http://www.rotational-seismology.org/join_form . You only need to provide your name and email address, and have the choice to sign up on all or selected subgroup E-mail lists.

2. What is IWGoRS?
IWGoRS is a "grass root" international working group of volunteers, unlike traditional working groups appointed by some authority. We have no officers, no dues, no staff, and no funding to operate or distribute. Anyone can join either as an "associate member" to receive our newsletters and emails, or as an "active member" to lead a new "task forces", or join an existing one. Our provisional charter is posted at: http://www.rotational-seismology.org/library/downloads/charterv3

We use our Website to promote rotational seismology by sharing ideas, data, software, etc. Its access is free and does not require membership. In order to get IWGoRS started, Heiner Igel and Willie Lee are now serving as "co-organizers". We also have several active members leading our current task forces listed at: http://www.rotational-seismology.org/research

3. AGU session and inauguration lunch.
Given that rotational seismology is still a fairly exotic field, the size of the audience (over 100) that attended the first AGU session dedicated to rotational motions was remarkable. From the questions and discussions following the presentations, it became clear that rotational motions are of current interest to a wide range of disciplines such as: strong-motion seismology, exploration geophysics, long-period seismology, earthquake engineering, earthquake physics, seismic instrumentation, seismic hazard, geodesy, astrophysics, etc., confirming the timeliness of the installation of the IWGoRS. Forming of the IWGoRS is the result of a mini-workshop on Rotational Seismology organized by Willie Lee, Ken Hudnut, and John Evans in February of 2006. This first workshop was organized in response to grass root interest, without any funding, and was held at the Menlo Park and Pasadena USGS offices by teleconferencing.
At the inauguration luncheon, it became clear that to properly enable an effective international collaboration within the IWGoRS, a workshop would be needed, which would allow sufficient time to discuss the many issues of interest. In the following, we summarize some of the issues that were discussed:

IWGoRS Workshop. The first IWGoRS Workshop will be organized by the US members of the working group, led by Willie Lee, Maria Todorovska, and Mehmet Çelebi. Potential funding sources are USGS, NSF, etc.; Autumn 2007 is the target time window, depending on securing funding. If funding for a stand-alone workshop is not available by that time, we will organize another AGU session on rotational seismology in December 2007, and possibly a small workshop during the AGU Meeting. The second Workshop will be organized by the European members of the working group.

Sensors. Bob Nigbor’s group has been testing the R-1 and RSB20 sensors in southern California, and the results are encouraging. Further testing will be conducted in Taiwan (by B. S. Huang, C. C. Liu, and C. F. Wu) in 2007, along with a small array of accelerometers that allows comparison with array-derived rotations.

Ring lasers. We seek to install a standard acquisition system for the various ring lasers installed worldwide. This will be based on the Quanterra system. Each location should be equipped with a standard broadband sensor. Cooperation with IRIS (Frank Vernon) is planned. Data should in the long term be distributed through the data management centers like IRIS.

We have posted most presentations in electronic form onto the IWGoRS web site accessible via home à events à special sessions pages. In the meantime, these presentations, as well as those of the first mini workshop, and many other useful items awaiting to be ported on the IWGoRS website can be found on a parallel FTP site maintained by John Evans at: ftp://ehzftp.wr.usgs.gov/jrevans/RotationsWorkshop/

4. Open positions
LMU Munich has an open two-year postdoc position for a project on rotational seismology. Please forward this information to any potential candidates who should contact "> .

Appologies to those who receive this mail more than once (maillist members).

Best regards,

Heiner Igel <>
Willie Lee <>
John Evans <>
Maria Todorovska <>