The hearts and thoughts of our EAGE community go out to the families and loved ones affected by the recent devastating earthquakes in Morocco and catastrophic flooding in Libya. These are human tragedies on an unimaginable scale, and no words can adequately describe the shock of thousands of lives lost in an instant, the families displaced and the accompanying appalling destruction. Both these terrible events touch on the professional concerns of many in our membership. We are reminded that so much more research of the near- and subsurface is needed within geoscience and engineering disciplines to give us some hope that disasters such as these can be prevented, or at least the associated risks better identified, mapped, communicated, and even mitigated. Meantime, we must trust that every effort is made to support the grieving and these communities cruelly torn apart, while initiating infrastructure reparations as speedily as possible.