Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Publications

Filter Total Items: 7238

Relationship of landslides to fractures in Potomac Group deposits, Fairfax County, Virginia

Landsliding is a common problem in eastern Fairfax County, an area underlain by Potomac Group (Lower Cretaceous) Coastal Plain deposits of silt and clay interbedded and interfingered with sand and gravel. The slides commonly are present in clay and silt that, on the basis of laboratory tests, appear to be much too strong to have failed. However, the very plastic silt and clay deposits are commonly
Authors
William H. Langer, Stephen F. Obermeier

Pillar Mountain Landslide, Kodiak, Alaska

Pillar Mountain landslide on the southeast face of Pillar Mountain is about 915 m (3,000 ft) southwest of the city of Kodiak, Alaska. The landslide is about 520 m (1,700 ft) wide at its base and extends approximately from sea level to an altitude of about 343 m (1,125 ft). The slide developed on an ancient and apparently inactive landslide. Renewed movement was first detected on December 5, 1971,
Authors
Reuben Kachadoorian, Willard H. Slater

FORTRAN programs for calculating nonlinear seismic ground response in two dimensions

The programs described here were designed for calculating the nonlinear seismic response of a two-dimensional configuration of soil underlain by a semi-infinite elastic medium representing bedrock. There are two programs. One is for plane strain motions, that is, motions in the plane perpendicular to the long axis of the structure, and the other is for antiplane strain motions, that is motions par
Authors
W. B. Joyner

Estimation of ground motion parameters

Strong motion data from western North America for earthquakes of magnitude greater than 5 are examined to provide the basis for estimating peak acceleration, velocity, displacement, and duration as a function of distance for three magnitude classes. Data from the San Fernando earthquake are examined to assess the effects of associated structures and of geologic site conditions on peak recorded mot
Authors
David M. Boore, Adolph A. Oliver, Robert A. Page, William B. Joyner

Historic ground failures in Northern California triggered by earthquakes

A major source of earthquake-related damage and casualties in northern California has been ground failures generated by the seismic shaking, including landslides, lateral spreads, ground settlement, and surface cracks. The historical record shows that, except for offshore shocks, the geographic area affected and the quantity and general severity of ground failures increase markedly with Richter ma
Authors
T. Leslie Youd, Seena N. Hoose

IPOD-USGS multichannel seismic reflection profile from Cape Hatteras to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge

A 3,400-km-long multichannel seismic-reflection profile from Cape Hatteras to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge was acquired commercially under contract to the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Geological Survey. These data show evidence for massive erosion of the continental slope, diapirs at the base of the continental slope, and mantle reflections beneath the Hatteras Abyssal Plain.
Authors
John A. Grow, Rudi G. Markl

Pleistocene barrier bar seaward of ooid shoal complex near Miami, Florida

An ooid sand barrier bar of Pleistocene age was deposited along the seaward side of an ooid shoal complex southwest of Miami, Florida. The bar is 35 km long, about 0.8 km wide, elongate parallel with the trend of the ooid shoal complex and perpendicular to channels between individual shoals. A depression 1.6 km wide, interpreted as a back-barrier channel, isolates the bar from the ooid shoals. Dur
Authors
Robert B. Halley, Shinn Shinn, J. Harold Hudson, Barbara H. Lidz

The effects of the α‐β phase transformation on the creep properties of hydrolytically‐weakened synthetic quartz

Nine rectangular prisms of hydro‐thermally‐grown synthetic quartz crystals with 900 atomic ppm H+ were loaded in compression at 1400 bars stress and temperatures between 403 and 764°C. The a and c directions were at 45° to the compression direction, and the slip system  appears to operate over the entire range of temperatures. The strain vs. time curves were sigmoidal in shape; an incubation stage
Authors
Stephen H. Kirby

Mechanical twinning in diopside Ca(Mg,Fe)Si2O6: Structural mechanism and associated crystal defects

iopside twins mechanically on two planes, (100) and (001), and the associated macroscopic twinning strains are identical (Raleigh and Talbot, 1967). An analysis based on crystal structural arguments predicts that both twin mechanisms involve shearing of the (100) octahedral layers (containing Ca2+, Mg2+ and Fe2+ ions) by a magnitude of c/2. Small adjustments or shuffles occur in the adjacent layer
Authors
Stephen H. Kirby, J.M. Christie

Wave propagation in soils

No abstract available.
Authors
Roger D. Borcherdt