People and economies in Indonesia have been seriously affected by geological hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamies, volcanic eruptions, and landslides since Indonesia is located in a complex tectonic setting. The Indo-Australian plate penetrates beneath the Eurasian Plate causes the presence of the Indonesian subduction zone. Therefore the volcanic arc is formed above the subduction zone. In Sumatra, a dextral strike-slip fault was formed due to the oblique motion of the Indo-Australian Plate relative to the trench in order to accommodate the trench parallel component of the convergence. Large earthquakes occurring along the subduction zone could trigger tsunami (e.g. the 2004 mega thrust Indian Ocean earthquake) while the maximum magnitude of earthquakes along the Sumatran Fault could be greater than Mw 7.5. Although the magnitudes of earthquakes along the Sumatran Fault are relatively smaller than those along the subduction zone, those earthquakes could destroy cities or towns since the epicentres are closer to the populated areas.

Therefore, it is significantly important to improve the knowledge of the potentials of geohazards and the ability to reduce the risk of the disasters. The geohazard team of TDMRC of Syiah Kuala University focus on research on topics of earthquakes, tsunamies (sources of tsunamies), landslides, volcanic eruptions, and other related geological hazards. We apply various methods including seismology, seismic hazard analysis, reflection seismic, and other near surface techniques. We also conduct risk assessment of possible geological hazards. One of the research focus of the geological hazard research group is to understand the detail of the fault structure of Sumatra. The figure shows the locations of seismic stations deployed in Northern Sumatra to record earthquakes occurring along the Sumatran fault and also along unknown secondary faults.

Asnawi Y, Simanjuntak AV, Muksin U, Okubo M, Putri SI, Rizal S, Syukri M. Soil classification in a seismically active environment based on join analysis of seismic parameters. Global Journal of Environmental Science and Management. 2022 Jul 1;8(3):297-314.

Muksin U, Riana E, Rudiyanto A, Bauer K, Simanjuntak AV, Weber M. Neural network based classification of rock properties and seismic vulnerability. Global Journal of Environmental Science and Management. 2022 Jun 24.

Idris Y, Cummins P, Rusydy I, Muksin U, Syamsidik, Habibie MY, Meilianda E. Post-earthquake damage assessment after the 6.5 mw earthquake on December, 7th 2016 in Pidie Jaya, Indonesia. Journal of Earthquake Engineering. 2022 Jan 2;26(1):409-26.

Jihad A, Muksin U, Suppasri A, Ramli M, Banyunegoro VH. Coastal and settlement typologies-based tsunami modeling along the northern Sumatra seismic gap zone for disaster risk reduction action plans. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 2020 Dec 1;51:101800.

Rusydy I, Idris Y, Muksin U, Cummins P, Akram MN. Shallow crustal earthquake models, damage, and loss predictions in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Geoenvironmental Disasters. 2020 Dec;7(1):1-6.

Syamsidik S., Muksin U., Margaglio G, Fitrayansyah A. Post-tsunami survey of the 28 September 2018 tsunami near Palu Bay in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia: Impacts and challenges to coastal communities. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 2019 Aug 1;38:101229.

Muksin U, Bauer K, Muzli M, Ryberg T, Nurdin I, Masturiyono M, Weber M. AcehSeis project provides insights into the detailed seismicity distribution and relation to fault structures in Central Aceh, Northern Sumatra. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences. 2019 Mar 1;171:20-7.

Muzli M, Muksin U, Nugraha AD, Bradley KE, Widiyantoro S, Erbas K, Jousset P, Rohadi S, Nurdin I, Wei S. The 2016 M w 6.5 Pidie Jaya, Aceh, North Sumatra, earthquake: reactivation of an unidentified sinistral fault in a region of distributed deformation. Seismological Research Letters. 2018 Sep;89(5):1761-72.

Pratama C, Ito T, Tabei T, Kimata F, Gunawan E, Ohta Y, Yamashina T, Nurdin I, Sugiyanto D, Muksin U, Ismail N. Evaluation of the 2012 Indian Ocean coseismic fault model in 3-D heterogeneous structure based on vertical and horizontal GNSS observation. InAIP Conference Proceedings 2018 Jul 18 (Vol. 1987, No. 1, p. 020011). AIP Publishing LLC.