Publications

Lake Waiau is a small, typically 100-meter-long lake, located near the summit of Mauna Kea volcano, on the Island of Hawaiʻi. It is Hawaiʻi’s only alpine lake and is considered sacred in Hawaiian cultural tradition. Over the past few years, the lake has diminished in size, and, by October 2013, surface water had almost completely disappeared from the lake. In this study, we use high-resolution sat

 Accumulating evidence, although still strongly spatially aliased, indicates that although remote dynamic triggering of small-to-moderate (Mw<5) earthquakes can occur in all tectonic settings, transtensional stress regimes with normal and subsidiary strike-slip faulting seem to be more susceptible to dynamic triggering than transpressional regimes with reverse and subsidiary strike-slip faulting.

This paper explores the role of melt fracturing in degassing rhyolitic volcanic systems. The Monte Pilato-Rocche Rosse eruptions in Italy evolved from explosive to effusive in style, and H2O content in quenched glasses changed over time from relatively H2O-rich (~ 0.90 wt.%) to H2O-poor dense obsidian (~ 0.10–0.20 wt.%). In addition, healed fractures have been recorded in all different eruptive ma

Before 1985, Mexico lacked civil-protection agencies with a mission to prevent and respond to natural and human-caused disasters; thus, the government was unprepared for the sudden eruption of El Chichón Volcano in March–April 1982, which produced the deadliest volcanic disaster in the country’s recorded history (~2,000 fatalities). With the sobering lessons of El Chichón still fresh, scientists a

Rapid onset natural disasters such as large landslides create a need for scientific information about the event, which is vital to ensuring public safety, restoring infrastructure, preventing additional damage, and resuming normal economic activity. At the same time, there is limited data available upon which to base reliable scientific responses. Monitoring movement and modeling runout are mechan

Montane fens are biologically diverse peat-forming wetlands that develop at points of groundwater discharge. To protect these ecosystems, it is critical to understand their locations on the landscape and the hydrogeologic systems that support them. The upper Deschutes Basin has a groundwater flow system that supports baseflow in many rivers, but little is known about the wetland types and groundwa

Eruptions of Alaska volcanoes have significant and sometimes profound geomorphic consequences on surrounding landscapes and ecosystems. The effects of eruptions on the landscape can range from complete burial of surface vegetation and preexisting topography to subtle, short-term perturbations of geomorphic and ecological systems. In some cases, an eruption will allow for new landscapes to form in

The Volcano Hazards Program of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is part of the Natural Hazards activity, as funded by Congressional appropriation. Investigations are carried out by the USGS and with cooperators at the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa and Hilo, University of Utah, and University

Regression of in-stream turbidity with concurrent sample-based suspended-sediment concentration (SSC) has become an accepted method for producing unit-value time series of inferred SSC (Rasmussen et al., 2009). Turbidity-SSC regression models are increasingly used to generate suspended-sediment records for Pacific Northwest rivers (e.g., Curran et al., 2014; Schenk and Bragg, 2014; Uhrich and Brag

The lateral blast, debris avalanche, and lahars of the May 18th, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens, Washington, dramatically altered the surrounding landscape. Lava domes were extruded during the subsequent eruptive periods of 1980–1986 and 2004–2008. More than three decades after the emplacement of the 1980 debris avalanche, high sediment production persists in the Toutle River basin, which drai

Evidence for climatic change across the North American Monsoon (NAM) and adjacent areas is reviewed, drawing on continental and marine records and the application of climate models. Patterns of change at 12,000, 9000, 6000 and 4000 cal yr BP are presented to capture the nature of change from the Younger Dryas (YD) and through the mid-Holocene. At the YD, conditions were cooler overall, wetter in t

A stratigraphic record of 35 large paleofloods and four large historical floods during the last 2000 years for four basins in the Black Hills of South Dakota reveals three long-term flooding episodes, identified using probability distributions, at A.D.: 120–395, 900–1290, and 1410 to present. During the Medieval Climate Anomaly (~ A.D. 900–1300) the four basins collectively experienced 13 large fl