Publications

Since it last erupted in 1999, Shishaldin Volcano, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, has produced hundreds to thousands of long-period (1-2 Hz; LP) earthquakes every day with no other sign of volcanic unrest. In 2002, the earthquakes also exhibited a short-period (4-7 Hz; SP) signal occurring between 3 and 15 s before the LP phase. Although the SP phase contains higher frequencies than the LP...

Partial melting of mafic intrusions recently emplaced into the lower crust can produce voluminous silicic magmas with isotopic ratios similar to their mafic sources. Low-temperature (825 and 850°C) partial melts synthesized at 700 MPa in biotite-hornblende gabbros from the central Sierra Nevada batholith (Sisson et al. in Contrib Mineral Petrol 148:635–661, 2005) have major-element and...

Rainfall-induced landslides are common in Puerto Rico (PR). The presence of steep slopes in mountainous terrain, coupled with weathered soils and intense rainfall, leads to severe slope-stability problems throughout the island. Episodic triggering events such as hurricanes and earthquakes further exacerbate these problems. All physiographic provinces of the island have experienced...

During 1999 we designed and tested a thermal monitoring system to provide a cheap, robust, modular, real-time system capable of surviving the hostile conditions encountered proximal to active volcanic vents. In November 2000 the first system was deployed at Pu'u 'O'o (Kilauea, Hawai'i) to target persistently active vents. Aside from some minor problems, such as sensor damage due to...

High-resolution historical (1942) and recent (1994) digital terrain models were derived from aerial photographs along the Big Sur coastline in central California to measure the long-term volume of material that enters the nearshore environment. During the 52-year measurement time period, an average of 21 000 ?? 3100 m3 km-1 a-1 of material was eroded from nine study sections distributed...

The seasonal CO2 cycle on Mars refers to the exchange of carbon dioxide between dry ice in the seasonal polar caps and gaseous carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This review focuses on breakthroughs in understanding the process involving seasonal carbon dioxide phase changes that have occurred as a result of observations by Mars Global Surveyor.

The source mechanism of very long period (VLP) signals accompanying volcanic degassing bursts at Popocatépetl is analyzed in the 15–70 s band by minimizing the residual error between data and synthetics calculated for a point source embedded in a homogeneous medium. The waveforms of two eruptions (23 April and 23 May 2000) representative of mild Vulcanian activity are well reproduced by...

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) is a remote sensing technique capable of measuring ground surface deformation with sub-centimeter precision and spatial resolution in tens-of­meters over a large region. This paper describes basics of InSAR and highlights our studies of Alaskan volcanoes with InSAR images acquired from European ERS-l and ERS-2, Canadian Radarsat-l, and...

No abstract available.

Several anecdotal accounts provide compelling evidence that liquefaction occurred at several sites in Illinois during the 1811-1812 New Madrid sequence, as much as 250 km north of the New Madrid seismic zone (NMSZ). At one Wabash Valley location, sand blows are still evident near Big Prairie, Illinois, a location described in a particularly detailed and precise historic account. This...

Locally, voluminous andesitic volcanism both preceded and followed large eruptions of silicic ash-flow tuff from many calderas in the San Juan volcanic field. The most voluminous post-collapse lava suite of the central San Juan caldera cluster is the 28 Ma Huerto Andesite, a diverse assemblage erupted from at least 5–6 volcanic centres that were active around the southern margins of the...

No abstract available.