Planned presentations on hazard assessment and research weren't the only topics for discussion at the 27th General Assembly of the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior (IASPEI), held from January 10–21 at the University of Victoria in Wellington, New Zealand.
There was a more timely one unfolding: California's Northridge earthquake. When conference participants awoke to news of the earthquake on January 18, they scrambled to action to gather the latest data available. Just 12 hours after the event, they held a general discussion about the earthquake.