Publications
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The current unlikely earthquake hiatus at California’s transform boundary paleoseismic sites
Paleoseismic and historical earthquake records used to quantify earthquake recurrence rates can also be used to test the likelihood of seismically quiescent periods. At principal paleoseismic sites in California on the San Andreas, San Jacinto, Elsinore, and Hayward faults, no ground‐rupturing earthquake has occurred in the last 100 yr, yet this interval is about three times the average interearth
Authors
Glenn Biasi, Katherine Scharer
Improving earthquake forecasts during swarms with a duration model
Earthquake swarms present a challenge for operational earthquake forecasting because they are driven primarily by transient external processes, such as fluid flow, the behavior and duration of which are difficult to predict. In this study, we develop a swarm duration model to estimate how long a swarm is likely to last based on actuarial statistics of previous swarms in a given region. We demonstr
Authors
Andrea L. Llenos, Nicholas van der Elst
Offshore landslide hazard curves from mapped landslide size distributions
We present a method to calculate landslide hazard curves along offshore margins based on size distributions of submarine landslides. The method analyzes ten different continental margins, that were mapped by high-resolution multibeam sonar with landslide scar areas measured by a consistent GIS procedure. Statistical tests of several different probability distribution models indicate that the logno
Authors
Eric L. Geist, Uri S. ten Brink
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the Pacific sand lance, Puget Sound, Washington
Forage fish are small, abundant, schooling planktivores that form a critical link in marine food webs by transferring energy from plankton up to birds, fishes, and marine mammals. Forage fishes in Puget Sound include the iconic Pacific herring as well as lesser known species such as surf smelt and the Pacific sand lance. There are significant knowledge gaps regarding the basic life history and p
Authors
Theresa Liedtke, Kathleen Conn, Richard Dinicola, Renee Takesue
Results from the Department of the Interior Strategic Sciences Group Technical Support for the 2018 Kīlauea Eruption
On May 3, 2018 Hawai'i’s Kīlauea volcano erupted, ultimately covering 35 square kilometers (13.5 square miles) of land in lava, destroying over 700 homes in multiple subdivisions, and displacing over 2500 residents in the Puna District on the southeast flank of the volcano. Simultaneously, Kīlauea’s summit experienced its largest collapse in 200 years, with a total of 500 meters (1,640 feet) subsi
Authors
K. A. Ludwig, Alice Pennaz, Aleeza Wilkins
A revised continuous surface elevation model for modeling
A digital elevation model (DEM) is an essential component of any hydrodynamic model. The Delta Modeling Section (Section) has maintained a database of bathymetry soundings and levee surveys for decades and published a 10-meter (10m) DEM for the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) (California Department of Water Resources 2012). In collaboration with the U.S. Geological Surve
Authors
Rueen-Fang Wang, Eli Ateljevich, Theresa A. Fregoso, Bruce E. Jaffe
Sources, timing, and fate of sediment and contaminants in the nearshore: insights from geochemistry
Rivers in Cascade watersheds carry sediment with a volcanic composition that is distinct from the plutonic composition of the Puget lowlands. Compositional properties (signatures) allow discrimination of river-sourced Cascade from lowland sediment, and inferences about transport pathways. Surface sediment on land contains atmospheric radionuclides whose known decay rates define monthly (7Be) and d
Authors
Renee K. Takesue, Kathleen E. Conn, Margaret Dutch
Factors controlling landslide frequency-area distributions
A power‐law relation for the frequency–area distribution (FAD) of medium and large landslides (e.g. tens to millions of square meters) has been observed by numerous authors. But the FAD of small landslides diverges from the power‐law distribution, with a rollover point below which frequencies decrease for smaller landslides. Some studies conclude that this divergence is an artifact of unmapped sma
Authors
Hakan Tanyaş, Cees J. van Westen, Kate E. Allstadt, Randall W. Jibson
Assessing patterns of annual change to permafrost bluffs along the North Slope coast of Alaska using high-resolution imagery and elevation models
Coastal permafrost bluffs at Barter Island, on the North Slope, Beaufort Sea Coast of Alaska are among the most rapidly eroding along Alaska’s coast, having retreated up to 132 m between 1955 and 2015. Here we quantify rates and patterns of change over a single year using very-high resolution orthophotomosaics and co-registered surface elevation models derived from a survey-grade form of structure
Authors
Ann E. Gibbs, Matt Nolan, Bruce M. Richmond, Alexander G. Snyder, Li Erikson
HyCReWW: A hybrid coral reef wave and water level metamodel
Wave-induced flooding is a major coastal hazard on tropical islands fronted by coral reefs. The variability of shape, size, and physical characteristics of the reefs across the globe make it difficult to obtain a parameterization of wave run-up, which is needed for risk assessments. Therefore, we developed the HyCReWW metamodel to predict wave run-up under a wide range of reef morphometric and off
Authors
Ana C. Rueda, Laura Cagigal, Stuart Pearson, Jose Antolínez, Curt D. Storlazzi, Ap van Dongeren, Paula Camus, Fernando J. Mendez
Sea level rise in the Samoan Islands escalated by viscoelastic relaxation after the 2009 Samoa‐Tonga earthquake
The Samoan islands are an archipelago hosting a quarter million people mostly residing in three major islands, Savai'i and Upolu (Samoa), and Tutuila (American Samoa). The islands have experienced sea level rise by 2–3 mm/year during the last half century. The rate, however, has dramatically increased following the Mw 8.1 Samoa‐Tonga earthquake doublet (megathrust + normal faulting) in September 2
Authors
Shin-Chan Han, Jeanne Sauber, Fred Pollitz, Richard Ray
Slow-growing and extended-duration seismicity swarms: Reactivating joints or foliations in the Cahuilla Valley Pluton, Central Peninsular Ranges, Southern California
Three prolific earthquake swarms and numerous smaller ones have occurred since 1980 in the Mesozoic igneous plutonic rocks of the Perris block of the Peninsular Ranges, Southern California. The major swarms occurred in 1980–1981, 1983–1984, and 2016–2018, with the latest swarm still ongoing. These swarms have no clear mainshock, with the largest events of ML 3.6, ML 3.7, and Mw 4.4. Each successiv
Authors
E. Hauksson, Z. Ross, Elizabeth S. Cochran