Publications
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Global earthquake fatalities and population
Modern global earthquake fatalities can be separated into two components: (1) fatalities from an approximately constant annual background rate that is independent of world population growth and (2) fatalities caused by earthquakes with large human death tolls, the frequency of which is dependent on world population. Earthquakes with death tolls greater than 100,000 (and 50,000) have increased with
Authors
Thomas L. Holzer, James C. Savage
Workshop on New Madrid geodesy and the challenges of understanding intraplate earthquakes
On March 4, 2011, 26 researchers gathered in Norwood, Massachusetts, for a workshop sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey and FM Global to discuss geodesy in and around the New Madrid seismic zone (NMSZ) and its relation to earthquake hazard. The group addressed the challenge of reconciling current geodetic measurements, which show low present-day surface strain rates, with paleoseismic evidence
Authors
Oliver Boyd, Eric Calais, John Langbein, Harold Magistrale, Seth Stein, Mark Zoback
Working with strainmeter data
The Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO), the geodetic component of the U.S. National Science Foundation–funded Earthscope program, includes 75 borehole and 6 laser strainmeters (http://pbo.unavco.org). The strainmeters are installed at several locations: on the Cascadia forearc in Washington state and on Vancouver Island, Canada; in arrays of two to nine instruments along the North American–Pacific p
Authors
Kathleen M. Hodgkinson, Duncan Agnew, Evelyn A. Roeloffs
Site Response and Basin Waves in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta, California
The Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta is an inland delta at the western extent of the Central Valley. Levees were built around swampy islands starting after the Civil War to reclaim these lands for farming. Various studies show that these levees could fail in concert from shaking from a major local or regional earthquake resulting in salty water from the San Francisco Bay contaminating the water in the
Authors
Jon Peter B. Fletcher, John Boatwright
Rupture history of the 2008 Mw 7.9 Wenchuan, China, earthquake: Evaluation of separate and joint inversions of geodetic, teleseismic, and strong-motion data
An extensive data set of teleseismic and strong-motion waveforms and geodetic offsets is used to study the rupture history of the 2008 Wenchuan, China, earthquake. A linear multiple-time-window approach is used to parameterize the rupture. Because of the complexity of the Wenchuan faulting, three separate planes are used to represent the rupturing surfaces. This earthquake clearly demonstrates the
Authors
Stephen H. Hartzell, Carlos Mendoza, Leonardo Ramírez-Guzmán, Yuesha Zeng, Walter Mooney
Late quaternary slip-rate variations along the Warm Springs Valley fault system, northern Walker Lane, California-Nevada border
The extent to which faults exhibit temporally varying slip rates has important consequences for models of fault mechanics and probabilistic seismic hazard. Here, we explore the temporal behavior of the dextral‐slip Warm Springs Valley fault system, which is part of a network of closely spaced (10–20 km) faults in the northern Walker Lane (California–Nevada border). We develop a late Quaternary sli
Authors
Ryan Gold, Craig dePolo, Richard W. Briggs, Anthony Crone, John Goss
Seismicity of the Earth 1900–2010 Middle East and vicinity
No fewer than four major tectonic plates (Arabia, Eurasia, India, and Africa) and one smaller tectonic block (Anatolia) are responsible for seismicity and tectonics in the Middle East and surrounding region. Geologic development of the region is a consequence of a number of first-order plate tectonic processes that include subduction, large-scale transform faulting, compressional mountain building
Authors
Jennifer Jenkins, Bethan Turner, Rebecca Turner, Gavin P. Hayes, Sian Davies, Richard L. Dart, Arthur C. Tarr, Antonio Villaseñor, Harley M. Benz
Mars Global Digital Dune Database (MGD3): Global dune distribution and wind pattern observations
The Mars Global Digital Dune Database (MGD3) is complete and now extends from 90°N to 90°S latitude. The recently released south pole (SP) portion (MC-30) of MGD3 adds ∼60,000 km2 of medium to large-size dark dune fields and ∼15,000 km2 of sand deposits and smaller dune fields to the previously released equatorial (EQ, ∼70,000 km2), and north pole (NP, ∼845,000 km2) portions of the database, bring
Authors
Rosalyn K. Hayward, Lori Fenton, Timothy N. Titus
Soil diversity and hydration as observed by ChemCam at Gale crater, Mars
The ChemCam instrument, which provides insight into martian soil chemistry at the submillimeter scale, identified two principal soil types along the Curiosity rover traverse: a fine-grained mafic type and a locally derived, coarse-grained felsic type. The mafic soil component is representative of widespread martian soils and is similar in composition to the martian dust. It possesses a ubiquitous
Authors
P.-Y. Meslin, O. Gasnault, O. Forni, S. Schroder, A. Cousin, G. Berger, S.M. Clegg, J. Lasue, S. Maurice, V. Sautter, S. Le Mouélic, R. C. Wiens, C. Fabre, W. Goetz, D.L. Bish, N. Mangold, B. Ehlmann, N. Lanza, A.-M. Harri, Ryan Anderson, E. Rampe, T.H. McConnochie, P. Pinet, D. Blaney, D. Archer, B. Barraclough, S. Bender, D. Blake, J.G. Blank, N. Bridges, B. C. Clark, L. DeFlores, D. Delapp, G. Dromart, M.D. Dyar, M. R. Fisk, B. Gondet, J. Grotzinger, Kenneth E. Herkenhoff, J. Johnson, J.-L. Lacour, Y. Langevin, L. Leshin, E. Lewin, M.B. Madsen, N. Melikechi, Alissa Mezzacappa, M.A. Mischna, J.E. Moores, H. Newsom, A. Ollila, N. Renno, J.B. Sirven, R. Tokar, M. de la Torre, L. d'Uston, D. Vaniman, A. Yingst
Environmental impact of the landslides caused by the 12 May 2008, Wenchuan, China earthquake
The magnitude 7.9 (Mw) Wenchuan, China, earthquake of May 12, 2008 caused at least 88,000 deaths of which one third are estimated to be due to the more than 56,000 earthquake-induced landslides. The affected area is mountainous, featuring densely-vegetated, steep slopes through which narrowly confined rivers and streams flow. Numerous types of landslides occurred in the area, including rock avalan
Authors
Lynn M. Highland, Ping Sun
Operational Group Sandy technical progress report
Hurricane Sandy made US landfall near Atlantic City, NJ on 29 October 2012, causing 72 direct deaths, displacing thousands of individuals from damaged or destroyed dwellings, and leaving over 8.5 million homes without power across the northeast and mid-Atlantic. To coordinate federal rebuilding activities in the affected region, the President established the cabinet-level Hurricane Sandy Rebuildin
Authors
GEM Building Taxonomy (Version 2.0)
This report documents the development and applications of the Building Taxonomy for the Global Earthquake Model (GEM). The purpose of the GEM Building Taxonomy is to describe and classify buildings in a uniform manner as a key step towards assessing their seismic risk, Criteria for development of the GEM Building Taxonomy were that the Taxonomy be relevant to seismic performance of different const
Authors
S. Brzev, C. Scawthorn, A.W. Charleson, L. Allen, M. Greene, Kishor Jaiswal, V. Silva