Publications
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Earthquake-induced chains of geologic hazards: Patterns, mechanisms, and impacts
Large earthquakes initiate chains of surface processes that last much longer than the brief moments of strong shaking. Most moderate- and large-magnitude earthquakes trigger landslides, ranging from small failures in the soil cover to massive, devastating rock avalanches. Some landslides dam rivers and impound lakes, which can collapse days to centuries later, and flood mountain valleys for hundre
Authors
Xuanmei Fan, Gianvito Scaringi, Oliver Korup, A. Joshua West, Cees J. van Westen, Hakan Tanyas, Niels Hovius, Tristram C Hales, Randall W. Jibson, Kate E. Allstadt, Limin Zhang, Stephen G. Evans, Chong Xu, Gen Li, Xiangjun Pei, Qiang Xu, Runqiu Huang
Characterizing seismogenic fault structures in Oklahoma using a relocated template matched catalog
Oklahoma is one of the most seismically active places in the United States as a result of industry activities. In order to characterize the fault networks responsible for these earthquakes in Oklahoma, we relocated a large-scale template matching catalog between 2010-2016 using the GrowClust algorithm . This relocated catalog is currently the most complete statewide catalog for Oklahoma during thi
Authors
Robert Skoumal, Joern Kaven, Jake Water
Active boulder movement at high Martian latitudes
Lobate stony landforms occur on steep slopes at high latitudes on Mars. We demonstrate active boulder movement at seven such sites. Sub-meter-scale boulders frequently move distances of a few meters. The movement is concentrated in the vicinity of the lobate landforms but also occurs on other slopes. This provides evidence for a new, common style of activity on Mars, which may play an important ro
Authors
Colin M. Dundas, Michael T. Mellon, Susan J. Conway, Renaldo Gastineau
Evidence for frequent, large tsunamis spanning locked and creeping parts of the Aleutian megathrust
At the eastern end of the 1957 Andreanof Islands magnitude-8.6 earthquake rupture, Driftwood Bay (Umnak Island) and Stardust Bay (Sedanka Island) lie along presently locked and creeping parts of the Aleutian megathrust, respectively, based on satellite geodesy onshore. Both bays, located 200-km apart, face the Aleutian trench and harbor coastal evidence for tsunami inundation in 1957. Here we desc
Authors
Robert C. Witter, Richard W. Briggs, Simon E. Engelhart, Guy R. Gelfenbaum, Richard D Koehler, Alan R. Nelson, SeanPaul La Selle, Reide Corbett, Kristi L. Wallace
Estimation of ground motion variability in the CEUS using simulations
We estimate earthquake ground-motion variability in the central and eastern U.S. (CEUS) by varying the model parameters of a deterministic physics-based and a stochastic site-based simulation method. Utilizing a moderate-magnitude database of recordings, we simulate ground motions for larger-magnitude scenarios M6.0, 6.5, 7.0, 7.5, and 8.0. For the physics-based method, we vary the faulting mechan
Authors
Xiaodan Sun, Sanaz Rezaeian, Brandon Clayton, Stephen H. Hartzell
Probabilistic seismic hazard analysis using stochastic simulated ground motions
: In recent years, ground motion models used in probabilistic seismic hazard analyses (PSHA) have evolved from the traditional approach of using ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) to using ground motion time series models. The purpose of this paper is to develop an approach to perform a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis using stochastic site-based simulation techniques. These technique
Authors
Sarah Azar, Mayssa Dabaghi, Sanaz Rezaeian
Implications of seismic design values for economic losses
In the U.S., seismic design values are determined mostly through a risk-targeting process, which combines information about the expected collapse fragility of code-designed structures with seismic hazard at a site. However, this target only applies where the risk-targeted ground motions govern the design. In other areas, primarily close to active faults, seismic design values are reduced to values
Authors
Dustin Cook, Abbie B. Liel, Nicolas Luco, Edward Almeter, Curt B. Haselton
Vertical coseismic offsets from differential high-resolution stereogrammetric DSMs: The 2013 Baluchistan, Pakistan earthquake
The recent proliferation of high-resolution (< 3-m spatial resolution) digital topography datasets opens a spectrum of geodetic applications in differential topography, including the quantification of coseismic vertical displacement fields. Most investigations of coseismic vertical displacements to date rely, in part, on pre- or post-event lidar surveys that are intractable or non-existent in many
Authors
William D. Barnhart, Ryan D. Gold, Hannah N. Shea, Katherine E. Peterson, Richard W. Briggs, David J. Harbor
Jack Boatwright’s last science
In the months before he passed away, Jack Boatwright asked us to review a manuscript on source properties, specifically stress drop, of earthquakes in northeastern North America (NENA). This manuscript originated in research funded by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), described in his final report to NRC and published as USGS Open-File Report 2018-1073 (Boatwright, 2018). We wish to ca
Authors
Annemarie S. Baltay, Thomas C. Hanks
Kinematic rupture modeling of ground motion from the M7 Kumamoto, Japan earthquake
We analyzed a kinematic earthquake rupture generator that combines the randomized spatial field approach of Graves and Pitarka (Bull Seismol Soc Am 106:2136–2153, 2016) (GP2016) with the multiple asperity characterization approach of Irikura and Miyake (Pure Appl Geophys 168:85–104, 2011) (IM2011, also known as Irikura recipe). The rupture generator uses a multi-scale hybrid approach that incorpor
Authors
Arben Pitarka, Robert Graves, Kojiro Irikura, Ken Miyakoshi, Artie Rogers
Radiometric ages of volcanic rocks on the fort rock dome and in the aquarius mountains, Yavapai and Mohave Counties, Arizona
The Fort Rock dome, in Yavapai County, Ariz., is a roughly circular geologic structure in plan view, 2.5 km in diameter, that is similar in many ways to an impact crater; however, it is a structural dome caused by a potassic mafic intrusion at depth, and the crater-like depression in its center is erosional in origin. The Aquarius Mountains, west of the Fort Rock dome, in Mohave County, contain a
Authors
Gary S. Fuis, Andrew T. Calvert, Katie Sullivan
Optimizing an inner-continental shelf geologic framework investigation through data repurposing and machine learning
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have collected approximately 5,400 km2 of geophysical and hydrographic data on the Atlantic continental shelf between Delaware and Virginia over the past decade and a half. Although originally acquired for different objectives, the comprehensive coverage and variety of data (bathymetry, backscatter, imager
Authors
Elizabeth A. Pendleton, Laura L. Brothers, Ed Sweeney