Publications
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Preliminary assessment of aggradation potential in the North Fork Stillaguamish River downstream of the State Route 530 landslide near Oso, Washington
On March 22, 2014, the State Route 530 Landslide near Oso, Washington, traveled almost 2 kilometers (km), destroyed more than 40 structures, and impounded the North Fork Stillaguamish River to a depth of 8 meters (m) and volume of 3.3×106 cubic meters (m3). The landslide killed 43 people. After overtopping and establishing a new channel through the landslide, the river incised into the landslide d
Authors
Christopher S. Magirl, Mackenzie K. Keith, Scott W. Anderson, Jim O'Connor, Robert Aldrich, Mark C. Mastin
Soil amplification with a strong impedance contrast: Boston, Massachusetts
In this study, we evaluate the effect of strong sediment/bedrock impedance contrasts on soil amplification in Boston, Massachusetts, for typical sites along the Charles and Mystic Rivers. These sites can be characterized by artificial fill overlying marine sediments overlying glacial till and bedrock, where the depth to bedrock ranges from 20 to 80 m. The marine sediments generally consist of orga
Authors
Laurie G. Baise, James Kaklamanos, Bradford M Berry, Eric M. Thompson
Quantifying 10 years of improved earthquake-monitoring performance in the Caribbean region
Over 75 tsunamis have been documented in the Caribbean and adjacent regions during the past 500 years. Since 1500, at least 4484 people are reported to have perished in these killer waves. Hundreds of thousands are currently threatened along the Caribbean coastlines. Were a great tsunamigenic earthquake to occur in the Caribbean region today, the effects would potentially be catastrophic due to an
Authors
Daniel E. McNamara, Christa Hillebrandt-Andrade, Jean-Marie Saurel, V. Huerfano-Moreno, Lloyd Lynch
Mapping geoelectric fields during magnetic storms: Synthetic analysis of empirical United States impedances
Empirical impedance tensors obtained from EarthScope magnetotelluric data at sites distributed across the midwestern United States are used to examine the feasibility of mapping magnetic storm induction of geoelectric fields. With these tensors, in order to isolate the effects of Earth conductivity structure, we perform a synthetic analysis—calculating geoelectric field variations induced by a geo
Authors
Paul A. Bedrosian, Jeffrey J. Love
Coral 13C/12C records of vertical seafloor displacement during megathrust earthquakes west of Sumatra
The recent surge of megathrust earthquakes and tsunami disasters has highlighted the need for a comprehensive understanding of earthquake cycles along convergent plate boundaries. Space geodesy has been used to document recent crustal deformation patterns with unprecedented precision, however the production of long paleogeodetic records of vertical seafloor motion is still a major challenge. Here
Authors
Michael K. Gagan, Sindia M. Sosdian, Heather Scott-Gagan, Kerry Sieh, Wahyoe S. Hantoro, Danny H. Natawidjaja, Richard W. Briggs, Bambang W. Suwargadi, Hamdi Rifai
Rapid characterization of the 2015 Mw 7.8 Gorkha, Nepal, earthquake sequence and its seismotectonic context
Earthquake response and related information products are important for placing recent seismic events into context and particularly for understanding the impact earthquakes can have on the regional community and its infrastructure. These tools are even more useful if they are available quickly, ahead of detailed information from the areas affected by such earthquakes. Here we provide an overview of
Authors
Gavin P. Hayes, Richard W. Briggs, William D. Barnhart, William L. Yeck, Daniel E. McNamara, David J. Wald, Jennifer Nealy, Harley M. Benz, Ryan D. Gold, Kishor S. Jaiswal, Kristin Marano, Paul S. Earle, Mike Hearne, Gregory M. Smoczyk, Lisa A. Wald, Sergey Samsonov
Seismic hazard in the eastern United States
The U.S. Geological Survey seismic hazard maps for the central and eastern United States were updated in 2014. We analyze results and changes for the eastern part of the region. Ratio maps are presented, along with tables of ground motions and deaggregations for selected cities. The Charleston fault model was revised, and a new fault source for Charlevoix was added. Background seismicity sources u
Authors
Charles Mueller, Oliver S. Boyd, Mark D. Petersen, Morgan P. Moschetti, Sanaz Rezaeian, Allison Shumway
Seismic hazard in the Nation's breadbasket
The USGS National Seismic Hazard Maps were updated in 2014 and included several important changes for the central United States (CUS). Background seismicity sources were improved using a new moment-magnitude-based catalog; a new adaptive, nearest-neighbor smoothing kernel was implemented; and maximum magnitudes for background sources were updated. Areal source zones developed by the Central and Ea
Authors
Oliver S. Boyd, Kathleen Haller, Nicolas Luco, Morgan P. Moschetti, Charles Mueller, Mark D. Petersen, Sanaz Rezaeian, Justin L. Rubinstein
Ground motion models used in the 2014 U.S. National Seismic Hazard Maps
The National Seismic Hazard Maps (NSHMs) are an important component of seismic design regulations in the United States. This paper compares hazard using the new suite of ground motion models (GMMs) relative to hazard using the suite of GMMs applied in the previous version of the maps. The new source characterization models are used for both cases. A previous paper (Rezaeian et al. 2014) discussed
Authors
Sanaz Rezaeian, Mark D. Petersen, Morgan P. Moschetti
Seismic hazard in the Intermountain West
The 2014 national seismic-hazard model for the conterminous United States incorporates new scientific results and important model adjustments. The current model includes updates to the historical catalog, which is spatially smoothed using both fixed-length and adaptive-length smoothing kernels. Fault-source characterization improved by adding faults, revising rates of activity, and incorporating n
Authors
Kathleen Haller, Morgan P. Moschetti, Charles Mueller, Sanaz Rezaeian, Mark D. Petersen, Yuehua Zeng
Validation of simulated earthquake ground motions based on evolution of intensity and frequency content
Simulated earthquake ground motions can be used in many recent engineering applications that require time series as input excitations. However, applicability and validation of simulations are subjects of debate in the seismological and engineering communities. We propose a validation methodology at the waveform level and directly based on characteristics that are expected to influence most structu
Authors
Sanaz Rezaeian, Peng Zhong, Stephen H. Hartzell, Farzin Zareian
Strong-motion observations of the M 7.8 Gorkha, Nepal, earthquake sequence and development of the N-shake strong-motion network
We present and describe strong-motion data observations from the 2015 M 7.8 Gorkha, Nepal, earthquake sequence collected using existing and new Quake-Catcher Network (QCN) and U.S. Geological Survey NetQuakes sensors located in the Kathmandu Valley. A comparison of QCN data with waveforms recorded by a conventional strong-motion (NetQuakes) instrument validates the QCN data. We present preliminary
Authors
Amod Dixit, Adam T. Ringler, Danielle F. Sumy, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Susan E. Hough, Stacey Martin, Steven Gibbons, James H. Luetgert, John Galetzka, Surya Shrestha, Sudhir Rajaure, Daniel E. McNamara