Publications

The Northern Walker Lane comprises a complex network of active faults in northwestern Nevada and northeastern California bound on the west by the Sierra Nevada and on the east by the extensional Basin and Range Province. Because deformation is distributed across sets of discontinuous faults, it is particularly challenging to integrate geologic and geodetic data in the NWL to assess the region's se

Earthquakes on strike-slip faults can produce devastating natural hazards. However, because they consist predominantly of lateral motion, these faults are rarely associated with significant uplift or tsunami generation. And although submarine slides can generate tsunami, only a few per cent of all tsunami are believed to be triggered in this way. The 12 January Mw 7.0 Haiti earthquake exhibited pr

We analyzed mortality rates of earthquakes worldwide and developed a country/region-specific empirical model for earthquake fatality estimation within the U.S. Geological Survey's Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER) system. The earthquake fatality rate is defined as total killed divided by total population exposed at specific shaking intensity level. The total fatalities f

No abstract available.

We demonstrate a direct method for the calculation of the annual frequency of exceedance for earthquake losses (or the probability distribution for annual losses) to a portfolio. This method parallels the classic method of probabilistic seismic hazard analysis for the calculation of the annual frequency of exceedance for earthquake ground motions. The method assumes conditional independence of the

Maps of surficial geology, deterministic and probabilistic seismic hazard, and liquefaction potential index have been prepared by various members of the Evansville Area Earthquake Hazard Mapping Project for seven quadrangles in the Evansville, Indiana, and Henderson, Kentucky, metropolitan areas. The surficial geologic maps feature 23 types of surficial geologic deposits, artificial fill, and undi

Most probabilistic seismic-hazard assessments require an estimate of Mmax, the magnitude (M) of the largest earthquake that is thought possible within a specified area. In seismically active areas such as some plate boundaries, large earthquakes occur frequently enough that Mmax might have been observed directly during the historical period. In less active regions like most of the Central and East

The thirteenth biennial International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA) Workshop on Geomagnetic Observatory Instruments, Data Acquisition and Processing was held in the United States for the first time on June 9-18, 2008. Hosted by the U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) Geomagnetism Program, the workshop's measurement session was held at the Boulder Observatory and the scientific sessio

Dendrogeomorphic techniques were used to assess soil movement within the Rattlesnake Gulf landslide in the Tully Valley of central New York during the last century. This landslide is a postglacial, slow-moving earth slide that covers 23 acres and consists primarily of rotated, laminated, glaciolacustrine silt and clay. Sixty-two increment cores were obtained from 30 hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) tree

This report presents an emergency assessment of potential debris-flow hazards from basins burned by the 2009 Station fire in Los Angeles County, southern California. Statistical-empirical models developed for postfire debris flows are used to estimate the probability and volume of debris-flow production from 678 drainage basins within the burned area and to generate maps of areas that may be inund

No abstract available.

We combine newspaper accounts and Nuttli's (1976) isoseismal map to assign modified Mercalli intensity (MMI) at 76 towns for the May 16, 1909 Northern Plains earthquake. The earthquake was felt across more than 1,500,000 km2 in the States of Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming and the Provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Saskatchewan.