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Constraints on friction, dilatancy, diffusivity, and effective stress from low-frequency earthquake rates on the deep San Andreas Fault

Families of recurring low-frequency earthquakes (LFEs) within nonvolcanic tremor on the San Andreas Fault in central California are sensitive to tidal stresses. LFEs occur at all levels of the tides, are strongly correlated and in phase with the ~200 Pa shear stresses, and weakly and not systematically correlated with the ~2 kPa tidal normal stresses. We assume that LFEs are small...
Authors
Nicholas M. Beeler, Amanda Thomas, Roland Bürgmann, David R. Shelly

U.S. Geological Survey National Strong-Motion Project strategic plan, 2017–22

The mission of the National Strong-Motion Project is to provide measurements of how the ground and built environment behave during earthquake shaking to the earthquake engineering community, the scientific community, emergency managers, public agencies, industry, media, and other users for the following purposes: Improving engineering evaluations and design methods for facilities and...
Authors
Brad T. Aagaard, Mehmet Çelebi, Lind Gee, Robert Graves, Kishor S. Jaiswal, Erol Kalkan, Keith L. Knudsen, Nico Luco, James Smith, Jamison Steidl, Christopher D. Stephens

Aftershocks, earthquake effects, and the location of the large 14 December 1872 earthquake near Entiat, central Washington

Reported aftershock durations, earthquake effects, and other observations from the large 14 December 1872 earthquake in central Washington are consistent with an epicenter near Entiat, Washington. Aftershocks were reported for more than 3 months only near Entiat. Modal intensity data described in this article are consistent with an Entiat area epicenter, where the largest modified...
Authors
Thomas M. Brocher, Margaret G. Hopper, S.T. Ted Algermissen, David M. Perkins, Stanley R. Brockman, Edouard P. Arnold

Increased sediment load during a large-scale dam removal changes nearshore subtidal communities

The coastal marine ecosystem near the Elwha River was altered by a massive sediment influx—over 10 million tonnes—during the staged three-year removal of two hydropower dams. We used time series of bathymetry, substrate grain size, remotely sensed turbidity, scuba dive surveys, and towed video observations collected before and during dam removal to assess responses of the nearshore...
Authors
Stephen P. Rubin, Ian M. Miller, Melissa M. Foley, Helen D. Berry, Jeffrey J. Duda, Benjamin Hudson, Nancy E. Elder, Matthew M. Beirne, Jonathan Warrick, Michael L. McHenry, Andrew W. Stevens, Emily Eidam, Andrea Ogston, Guy R. Gelfenbaum, Rob Pedersen

A prototype operational earthquake loss model for California based on UCERF3-ETAS – A first look at valuation

We present a prototype operational loss model based on UCERF3-ETAS, which is the third Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast with an Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) component. As such, UCERF3-ETAS represents the first earthquake forecast to relax fault segmentation assumptions and to include multi-fault ruptures, elastic-rebound, and spatiotemporal clustering, all of...
Authors
Edward H. Field, Keith Porter, Kevn Milner

Analysis of the variability in ground-motion synthesis and inversion

In almost all past inversions of large-earthquake ground motions for rupture behavior, the goal of the inversion is to find the “best fitting” rupture model that predicts ground motions which optimize some function of the difference between predicted and observed ground motions. This type of inversion was pioneered in the linear-inverse sense by Olson and Apsel (1982), who minimized the...
Authors
Paul A. Spudich, Antonella Cirella, Laura Scognamiglio, Elisa Tinti

Considerations in comparing the U.S. Geological Survey one‐year induced‐seismicity hazard models with “Did You Feel It?” and instrumental data

The recent steep increase in seismicity rates in Oklahoma, southern Kansas, and other parts of the central United States led the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to develop, for the first time, a probabilistic seismic hazard forecast for one year (2016) that incorporates induced seismicity. In this study, we explore a process to ground‐truth the hazard model by comparing it with two...
Authors
Isabel White, Taojun Liu, Nico Luco, Abbie Liel

Evidence for the interior evolution of Ceres from geologic analysis of fractures

Ceres is the largest asteroid belt object, and the Dawn spacecraft observed Ceres since 2015. Dawn observed two morphologically distinct linear features on Ceres's surface: secondary crater chains and pit chains. Pit chains provide unique insights into Ceres's interior evolution. We interpret pit chains called the Samhain Catenae as the surface expression of subsurface fractures. Using...
Authors
Jennifer E. C. Scully, Debra Buczkowski, Nico Schmedemann, Carol A. Raymond, Julie C. Castillo-Rogez, Scott King, Michael T. Bland, Anton Ermakov, D.P. O'Brien, S. Marchi, A. Longobardo, C.T. Russell, R.R. Fu, M. Neveu

Can thermoluminescence be used to determine soil heating from a wildfire?

The Silverado wildfire occurred from September 12 to 20, 2014, burning 960 acres in Orange County, California. Soil samples from within the burn area were obtained and the thermoluminescence (TL) properties of those samples were compared against a control sample to understand wildfire heating. We performed a series of experiments investigating the degree to which the control differed...
Authors
Francis K. Rengers, Vasilis Pagonis, Shannon A. Mahan

Basalt–trachybasalt samples in Gale Crater, Mars

The ChemCam instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, Curiosity, observed numerous igneous float rocks and conglomerate clasts, reported previously. A new statistical analysis of single‐laser‐shot spectra of igneous targets observed by ChemCam shows a strong peak at ~55 wt% SiO2 and 6 wt% total alkalis, with a minor secondary maximum at 47–51 wt% SiO2 and lower alkali...
Authors
Peter H. Edwards, John C. Bridges, Roger C. Wiens, Ryan B. Anderson, M. Darby Dyar, Martin Fisk, Lucy Thompson, Patrick J. Gasda, Justin Filiberto, Susanne P. Schwenzer, Diana L. Blaney, Ian Hutchinson

Geophysical characterization of seismic station sites in the United States – The importance of a flexible, multi-method approach

Noninvasive geophysical site characterization methods were used in two recent projects to obtain shear-wave velocity (VS) profiles to a minimum depth of 30 m and the time-averaged VS of the upper 30 meters (VS30) at seismic station sites. These projects include the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funded U.S. Geological Survey site characterization project for 191 sites...
Authors
Antony Martin, Alan Yong, William J. Stephenson, J. Boatwright, John Diehl

Preface: The lunar reconnaissance orbiter

When the call for papers for a special issue of Icarus devoted to analysis of data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission was announced in March 2015 we envisioned a single issue with only a possibility of a second. We certainly were gratified by the response from within and outside the LRO instrument teams such that we were compelled to publish this the third and final volume. It...
Authors
John W Keller, Lisa R. Gaddis, Noah E. Petro, Oded Aharonson
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