Publications
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Metadata for selecting or submitting generic seismic vulnerability functions via GEM's vulnerability database
This memo lays out a procedure for the GEM software to offer an available vulnerability function for any acceptable set of attributes that the user specifies for a particular building category. The memo also provides general guidelines on how to submit the vulnerability or fragility functions to the GEM vulnerability repository, stipulating which attributes modelers must provide so that their vuln
Authors
Kishor Jaiswal
Wildfire and landscape change
Wildfire is a worldwide phenomenon that is expected to increase in extent and severity in the future, due to fuel accumulations, shifting land management practices, and climate change. It immediately affects the landscape by removing vegetation, depositing ash, influencing water-repellent soil formation, and physically weathering boulders and bedrock. These changes typically lead to increased eros
Authors
P. Santi, S. Cannon, J. DeGraff
Clustering of GPS velocities in the Mojave Block, southeastern California
We find subdivisions within the Mojave Block using cluster analysis to identify groupings in the velocities observed at GPS stations there. The clusters are represented on a fault map by symbols located at the positions of the GPS stations, each symbol representing the cluster to which the velocity of that GPS station belongs. Fault systems that separate the clusters are readily identified on such
Authors
James C. Savage, Robert W. Simpson
Volcanic earthquakes in Alaska's national parks
Alaska’s national parks contain 11 historically active
volcanoes (Figure 2), which produce thousands of small
earthquakes every year. These earthquakes are voices
of the magmatic and geothermal systems within the
volcanoes. The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO), a
joint program of the U.S. Geological Survey, the Geophysical
Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks,
and the Alaska Division of
Authors
Stephanie G. Prejean, Seth C. Moran, John A. Power, Michael J. West
The effect of complex fault rupture on the distribution of landslides triggered by the 12 January 2010, Haiti earthquake
The MW 7.0, 12 January 2010, Haiti earthquake triggered more than 7,000 landslides in the mountainous terrain south of Port-au-Prince over an area that extends approximately 50 km to the east and west from the epicenter and to the southern coast. Most of the triggered landslides were rock and soil slides from 25°–65° slopes within heavily fractured limestone and deeply weathered basalt and basalti
Authors
Edwin L. Harp, Randall W. Jibson, Richard L. Dart
The magnetic tides of Honolulu
We review the phenomenon of time-stationary, periodic quiet-time geomagnetic tides. These are generated by the ionospheric and oceanic dynamos, and, to a lesser-extent, by the quiet-time magnetosphere, and they are affected by currents induced in the Earth's electrically conducting interior. We examine historical time series of hourly magnetic-vector measurements made at the Honolulu observatory.
Authors
Jeffrey J. Love, Erin Joshua Rigler
U.S. Geological Survey natural hazards science strategy— Promoting the safety, security, and economic well-being of the Nation
Executive SummaryThe mission of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in natural hazards is to develop and apply hazard science to help protect the safety, security, and economic well-being of the Nation. The costs and consequences of natural hazards can be enormous, and each year more people and infrastructure are at risk. USGS scientific research—founded on detailed observations and improved underst
Authors
Robert R. Holmes, Lucile M. Jones, Jeffery C. Eidenshink, Jonathan W. Godt, Stephen H. Kirby, Jeffrey J. Love, Christina A. Neal, Nathaniel G. Plant, Michael L. Plunkett, Craig S. Weaver, Anne Wein, Suzanne C. Perry
Weakening of ice by magnesium perchlorate hydrate
We show that perchlorate hydrates, which have been detected at high circumpolar martian latitudes, have a dramatic effect upon the rheological behavior of polycrystalline water ice under conditions applicable to the North Polar Layered Deposits (NPLD). We conducted subsolidus creep tests on mixtures of ice and magnesium perchlorate hydrate, Mg(ClO4)2·6H2O (MP6), of 0.02, 0.05, 0.10, and 0.47 volum
Authors
Hendrick J. Lenferinka, William B. Durhama, Laura A. Sternb, Asmin V. Patharec
Comment on “Historical perspective on seismic hazard to Hispaniola and the northeast Caribbean region” by U. ten Brink et al.
The analysis of historical earthquakes in the northeastern Caribbean by ten Brink et al. [2011, hereafter TB11] addresses the occurrence of large and destructive historical earthquakes associated with the North American-Caribbean plate boundary. One conclusion presented in TB11 is that the recurrence interval for large earthquakes on the left-lateral, strike-slip Septentrional Fault (SF) (Figure 1
Authors
Carol S. Prentice, Paul Mann, Luis R. Peña
Triggered tremor sweet spots in Alaska
To better understand what controls fault slip along plate boundaries, we have exploited the abundance of seismic and geodetic data available from the richly varied tectonic environments composing Alaska. A search for tremor triggered by 11 large earthquakes throughout all of seismically monitored Alaska reveals two tremor “sweet spots”—regions where large-amplitude seismic waves repeatedly trigger
Authors
Joan Gomberg, Stephanie Prejean
NGA-West 2 Equations for predicting PGA, PGV, and 5%-Damped PSA for shallow crustal earthquakes
We provide ground-motion prediction equations for computing medians and standard deviations of average horizontal component intensity measures (IMs) for shallow crustal earthquakes in active tectonic regions. The equations were derived from a global database with M 3.0–7.9 events. We derived equations for the primary M- and distance-dependence of the IMs after fixing the VS30-based nonlinear site
Authors
David M. Boore, Jon P. Stewart, Emel Seyhan, Gail M. Atkinson
The effect of sampling rate and anti-aliasing filters on high-frequency response spectra
The most commonly used intensity measure in ground-motion prediction equations is the pseudo-absolute response spectral acceleration (PSA), for response periods from 0.01 to 10 s (or frequencies from 0.1 to 100 Hz). PSAs are often derived from recorded ground motions, and these motions are usually filtered to remove high and low frequencies before the PSAs are computed. In this article we are only
Authors
David M. Boore, Christine Goulet