Publications
Filter Total Items: 7220
Expanded conceptual risk framework for uranium mining in Grand Canyon watershed—Inclusion of the Havasupai Tribe perspective
In 2012, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior placed a 20-year limit on mineral extraction on Federal lands in the Grand Canyon watershed to permit further study of the environmental effects of uranium mining. Tribal concerns were also noted by the U.S. Department of the Interior and included in the rationale for the decision stating Tribal resource impacts could not be mitigated a
Authors
Carletta Tilousi, Jo Ellen Hinck
Fault activity in the San Gabriel Mountains, southern California, USA: Insights from landscape morphometrics, erosion rates, and fault-slip rates
Many studies use landscape form to determine spatial patterns of tectonic deformation, and these are particularly effective when paired with independent measures of rock uplift and erosion. Here, we use morphometric analyses and 10Be catchment-averaged erosion rates, together with reverse slip rates from the Sierra Madre−Cucamonga fault zone, to reveal patterns in uplift, erosion, and fault activi
Authors
Andrew Meredith, Devin McPhillips
Satellite Interferometry Landslide Detection and Preliminary Tsunamigenic Plausibility Assessment in Prince William Sound, Southcentral Alaska
Regional mapping of actively deforming landslides, including measurements of landslide velocity, is integral for hazard assessments in paraglacial environments. These inventories are also critical for describing the potential impacts that the warming effects of climate change have on slope instability in mountainous and cryospheric terrain. The objective of this study is to identify slow-moving la
Authors
Lauren N. Schaefer, Jinwook Kim, Dennis M. Staley, Zhong Lu, Katherine R. Barnhart
Hybrid CPU-GPU solution to regularized divergence-free curl-curl equations for electromagnetic inversion problems
The Curl-Curl equation is the foundation of time-harmonic electromagnetic (EM) problems in geophysics. The efficiency of its solution is key to EM simulations, accounting for over 95% of the computation cost in geophysical inversions for magnetotelluric or controlled-source EM problems. However, most published EM inversion codes are still central processing unit (CPU)-based and cannot utilize rece
Authors
Hao Dong, Kai Sun, Gary D. Egbert, Anna Kelbert, Naser Meqbel
Evolution of a lake margin recorded in the Sutton Island member of the Murray formation, Gale crater, Mars
This study uses data from the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover to document the facies of the Sutton Island member of the Murray formation, interpret paleoenvironments, and establish key stratigraphic transitions at Gale crater. Two facies associations were identified: Facies Association 1 (FA1) and Facies Association 2 (FA2). Individual facies in FA1 include planar-laminated mudstone with m
Authors
Samantha Gwizd, Christopher M. Fedo, John P. Grotzinger, Steve G. Banham, Frances Rivera-Hernandez, Sanjeev Gupta, Kathryn M. Stack, Lauren A. Edgar, Ashwin R. Vasavada, Joel M. Davis, Linda C. Kah
Developing and implementing an International Macroseismic Scale (IMS) for earthquake engineering, earthquake science, and rapid damage assessment
Executive SummaryMacroseismic observations and analysis connect our collective seismological past with the present and the present to the future by facilitating hazard estimates and communicating the effects of ground shaking to a wide variety of audiences across the ages. Invaluable ground shaking and building damage information is gained through standardized, systematic approaches for assigning
Authors
David J. Wald, Tatiana Goded, Ayse Hortascu, Sabine Chandradewi Loos
Complex landslide patterns explained by local intra-unit variability of stratigraphy and structure: Case study in the Tyee Formation, Oregon, USA
Lithology and geologic structure are important controls on landslide susceptibility and are incorporated into many regional landslide hazard models. Typically, metrics for mapped geologic units are used as model input variables and a single set of values for material strength are assumed, regardless of spatial heterogeneities that may exist within a map unit. Here we describe how differences in be
Authors
Sean Richard LaHusen, Alex R. R. Grant
Slope Unit Maker (SUMak): An efficient and parameter-free algorithm for delineating slope units to improve landslide modeling
Slope units are terrain partitions bounded by drainage and divide lines. In landslide modeling, including susceptibility modeling and event-specific modeling of landslide occurrence, slope units provide several advantages over gridded units, such as better capturing terrain geometry, improved incorporation of geospatial landslide-occurrence data in different formats (e.g., point and polygon), and
Authors
Jacob Bryson Woodard, Benjamin B. Mirus, Nathan J. Wood, Kate E. Allstadt, Ben Leshchinsky, Matthew Crawford
Probabilistic seismic-hazard analysis for the western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
We present a probabilistic seismic-hazard analysis (PSHA) for the west-central part of the Arabian Peninsula. Our study area includes the northern Harrat Rahat volcanic field and the nearby city of Al Madīnah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This young, active volcanic field experienced one historical eruption in 1256 C.E. (654 in the year of the Hijra) that vented 20 to 22 kilometers (km) southeast of t
Authors
Ryota Kiuchi, Walter D. Mooney, Hani M. Zahran
Seismic hazard assessment for areas of volcanic activity in western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Earthquake swarms caused by volcanic activity, tectonic stresses, or industrial operations (oil and gas production) can pose considerable risk for nearby settlements. As a rule, a probabilistic seismic hazard assessment (PSHA) that is based on time-independent earthquakes does not take into account earthquake swarms because of their statistically time-dependent nature. We describe the technique an
Authors
Hani M. Zahran, Vladimir Sokolov, Ian C. F. Stewart
Ground-motion prediction equations for the western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for the western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are developed by employing a mixed-effects regression model to modify the Boore and others (2014) Next Generation Attenuation-West2 (NGA-West2) project GMPEs. NGA-West2 addressed several key issues concerning GMPEs for shallow crustal earthquakes in active tectonic regions. However, the NGA-West2 input data do not i
Authors
Ryota Kiuchi, Walter D. Mooney, Hani M. Zahran
Ambient seismic noise tomography of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Harrat Rahat is a Cenozoic volcanic field in the west-central part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 150 kilometers east of the Red Sea, and is the site of the most recent eruption in the country (1256 C.E.; 654 in the year of the Hijra). The city of Al Madīnah lies at the north end of Harrat Rahat, and its volcanic and seismic risks are frequently reassessed. In 2009 C.E. an earthquake swarm at Har
Authors
Francesco Civilini, Walter D. Mooney, Martha K. Savage, John Townend