TURBOMUD

Paleoseismology is a relatively recent branch of earthquake-related studies but since its birth, 70 years ago, it is rapidly expanding back in time the earthquakes catalogues worldwide. Its contribution to historical and geological earthquakes detection has shed light on one of the mostcrucial challenges of modern geology: high magnitude earthquakes recurrence and our ability to predict them. Therefore, it is of key importance to characterize every subduction zone on the planet (where the most dangerous events are happening) to the best resolution available through paleoseismology. Only this way, improving the characterization of seismic hazard by determining magnitude and recurrence interval of large events, one would be able to mitigate the seismic risk and improve prevention policies for the nearby population. This project is aiming to develop and improve the paleoseismic knowledge for the Gulf of Cadiz, using a large dataset collected during the most recent and previous cruises carried out in the region. Building on sedimentology (including dating) and sediment physical properties, an innovative work is proposed, which will conjugate mud volcanism and turbidites occurrence to better estimate the seismic hazard for this convergent area. With the help of new material and data, including two long sediment cores, several gravity cores, as well as bathymetric and seismic data, an extensive study on the GoC paleoseismology will be implemented. Following a pioneering approach, the project is aiming to apply and integrate the classical methods for the study of turbidite deposits to the suites of techniques used to describe mud volcanoes episodicity, in order to precisely define past earthquakes events. This proposal will produce the most complete earthquakes database for the Cadiz Accretionary Prism and the adjacent Seine Abyssal Plain, parallelly establishing the recent seismic history and hazard of the main transform faults cross-cutting the accretionary prism.