Dr Jenni Robertson — Birkbeck, University of London

Overview

Highlights

I am presently working with Professor Gerald Roberts as part of NERC Standard Grant: Active fault slip-rates and earthquake recurrence controlled by stress transfer and viscous flow (NE/V012894/1)
Project abstract
Seismic hazard assessment and understanding of continental deformation are hindered by unexplained slip-rate fluctuations on faults, associated with (a) temporal clusters of damaging earthquakes lasting 100s to 1000s of years, and (b) longer-term fault quiescence lasting tens to hundreds of millennia. We propose a new unified hypothesis explaining both (a) and (b), involving stress interactions between fault/shear-zones and neighbouring fault/shear-zones; however key data to test this are lacking. We propose measurements and modelling to test our hypothesis, which have the potential to quantify the processes that control continental faulting and fluctuations in the rates of expected earthquake occurrence, with high societal impact. Our aspiration is that cities and critical facilities worldwide will gain additional protection from seismic hazard through use of the calculations we pioneer herein.

Qualifications

PhD earthquake geology, Birkbeck College, 2021
BSc Earth Sciences, Birkbeck College, University of London, 2014

ORCID

0000-0002-0849-6050

Research

Research interests

Constraining the ages of palaeoshorelines using 36Cl cosmogenic exposure dating and U/Th on corals
36Cl exposure dating on fault scarps to examine slip histories
Investigating the interaction between active faults using stress modelling
Structural geology of active faults
Quaternary science and dating

Research overview

I am interested in investigating active faults over timescales from the Holocene to the Pleistocene. My work primarily focuses on faults in Greece and I have also worked within projects investigating active faults in Italy.

My specific areas of interest are in the following:

Using deformed Late Quaternary palaeoshorelines to investigate active faults, with a particular focus on constraining the absolute age of palaeoshorelines using dating techniques such as cosmogenic 36Cl exposure dating and U/Th on corals
36Cl cosmogenic exposure dating on fault scarps to determine fault slip histories and investigate earthquake clustering on normal faults
The role of stress interaction between the brittle and shear zones of faults.

Supervision and teaching

Teaching

Teaching modules

Structural Geology and Tectonics (EASC011H5)
Landscape Change: Past and Future (1) (SSGE067S6)
Energy and Climate Change (30 credits) (SSGE112S7)

Publications

Article

Mitchell, Sam and Roberts, Gerald P. and Sgambato, Claudia and Robertson, Jenni (2024) The relationship between kinematics and fault geometry for surface coseismic ruptures on across-strike faults: new observations of slip vectors and displacements along the Pisia and Skinos faults from the 1981 Eastern Gulf of Corinth, Greece earthquakes. Journal of Structural Geology 182 (105117), ISSN 0191-8141.
Roberts, Gerald P. and Sgambato, Claudia and Robertson, Jenni and Mitchell, Sam (2024) Spatial migration of temporal earthquake clusters driven by the transfer of differential stress between neighbouring fault/shear-zone structures. Journal of Structural Geology 181 (105096), ISSN 0191-8141.
Robertson, Jenni and Roberts, Gerald P. and Ganas, A. and Meschis, Marco and Gheorgiu, D. and Shanks, R. (2023) Quaternary uplift of palaeoshorelines in southwestern Crete: the combined effect of extensional and compressional faulting. Quaternary Science Reviews 316, ISSN 0277-3791.
Mildon, Zoe and Roberts, Gerald P. and Faure Walker, J.P. and Beck, J. and Papanikolaou, I. and Michetti, A.M. and Toda, S. and Iezzi, Francesco and Campbell, L. and McCaffrey, K.J.W. and Shanks, R. and Sgambato, Claudia and Robertson, Jenni and Meschis, Marco and Vittori, E. (2022) Surface faulting earthquake clustering controlled by fault and shear-zone interactions. Nature Communications 13 (7126), ISSN 2041-1723.
Meschis, Marco and Roberts, Gerald P. and Robertson, Jenni (2022) Out of phase Quaternary uplift-rate changes reveal normal fault interaction, implied by deformed marine palaeoshorelines. Geomorphology 416 (108432), ISSN 0169-555X.
Robertson, Jenni and Roberts, Gerald P. and Iezzi, Francesco and Meschis, Marco (2020) Distributed normal faulting in the tip zone of the South Alkyonides Fault System, Gulf of Corinth, constrained using 36Cl exposure dating of Late-Quaternary wave-cut platforms. Journal of Structural Geology 136, pp. 104063. ISSN 0191-8141.
Meschis, M. and Roberts, Gerald P. and Mildon, Z.K. and Robertson, Jennifer and Michetti, A.M. and Faure Walker, J.P. (2019) Slip on a mapped normal fault for the 28th December 1908 Messina earthquake (Mw 7.1) in Italy. Scientific Reports 9 (6481), ISSN 2045-2322.
Robertson, Jennifer and Meschis, M. and Roberts, Gerald P. and Ganas, A. and Gheorghiu, D. (2019) Temporally constant quaternary uplift rates and their relationship with extensional upper-plate faults in south Crete (Greece), constrained with 36Cl cosmogenic exposure dating. Tectonics 38 (4), pp. 1189-1222. ISSN 0278-7407.
Iezzi, Francesco and Mildon, Z. and Faure Walker, J. and Roberts, Gerald P. and Goodall, H. and Wilkinson, M. and Robertson, Jennifer (2018) Coseismic throw variation across along-strike bends on active normal faults: implications for displacement versus length scaling of earthquake ruptures. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth 123 (11), pp. 9817-9841. ISSN 0148-0227.
Meschis, Marco and Roberts, Gerald P. and Robertson, Jennifer and Briant, Rebecca (2018) The relationships between regional Quaternary uplift, deformation across active normal faults and historical seismicity in the upper plate of subduction zones: The Capo D’Orlando Fault, NE Sicily. Tectonics 37 (5), pp. 1231-1255. ISSN 0278-7407.

External Repositories

Google Scholar profile