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Geomagnetic monitoring in the mid-Atlantic United States

Near historic battlegrounds of the American Civil War, southeast of Fredericksburg, Virginia, on a secluded grassy glade surrounded by forest, a specially designed observatory records the Earth’s changing magnetic field. This facility, the Fredericksburg Magnetic Observatory, is 1 of 14 observatories the U.S. Geological Survey Geomagnetism Program operates at various locations across the United St
Authors
Jeffrey J. Love, Kristen A. Lewis

Preface to the Focus Section on the 2020 Intermountain West earthquakes

The Intermountain West region of the United States extends from the eastern margin of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains in the west to the Rocky Mountains in the east. The region is characterized by dextral shear along the eastern margin of the Sierra Nevada and nearly east-west extension in the Basin and Range. This region experienced four significant earthquake sequences in the first half
Authors
Ryan D. Gold, Jayne Bormann, Keith D. Koper

2021 Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics Developers Workshop

The CIG Developers Workshop resulted in a number of recommendations that we think will help expand the CIG developer community, make software more accessible to new users, and increase developer productivity through use of common infrastructure and best practices for software development. This includes building a broad user base with sufficient support through documentation, tutorials, user forums
Authors
Brad T. Aagaard, Jed Brown, Catherin Cooper, Rene Gassmoeller, Lorraine Hwang, Marc Spiegelman

Response of an asymmetrical five-story building in Fairbanks, Alaska during the November 30, 2018 M7.1 Anchorage, Alaska earthquake

A recently constructed, five-story, asymmetrical steel building on the campus of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks was equipped with a strong-motion array that recorded the M7.1 Anchorage earthquake of November 30, 2018 at an epicentral distance of 408 km. The largest recorded peak accelerations at the basement and top of the building are 0.021g and 0.071g, respectively. The steel building is de
Authors
Mehmet Çelebi, Natalia Ruppert

Airborne dust plumes lofted by dislodged ice blocks at Russell Crater, Mars

Linear dune gullies on poleward-facing Martian slopes are enigmatic. Formation by CO2-ice block or snow cornice falls has been proposed based on optical imagery of bright, high-albedo features inside gully channels. Because these features often resemble patchy frost residue rather than three-dimensional blocks, more evidence is needed to support the ice-block formation mechanism. Satellite imagery
Authors
Cynthia L. Dinwiddie, Timothy N. Titus

Forecasting induced earthquake hazard using a hydromechanical earthquake nucleation model

In response to the dramatic increase in earthquake rates in the central United States, the U.S Geological Survey began releasing 1 yr earthquake hazard models for induced earthquakes in 2016. Although these models have been shown to accurately forecast earthquake hazard, they rely purely on earthquake statistics because there was no precedent for forecasting induced earthquakes based upon wastewat
Authors
Justin Rubinstein, Andrew Barbour, Jack H Norbeck

Airborne dust plumes lofted by dislodged ice blocks at Russell crater, Mars

Linear dune gullies on poleward‐facing Martian slopes are enigmatic. Formation by CO2‐ice block or snow cornice falls has been proposed based on optical imagery of bright, high‐albedo features inside gully channels. Because these features often resemble patchy frost residue rather than three‐dimensional blocks, more evidence is needed to support the ice‐block formation mechanism. Satellite imagery
Authors
Cynthia Dinwiddie, Timothy N. Titus

Extreme Quaternary plate boundary exhumation and strike slip localized along the southern Fairweather fault, Alaska, USA

The Fairweather fault (southeastern Alaska, USA) is Earth’s fastest-slipping intracontinental strike-slip fault, but its long-term role in localizing Yakutat–(Pacific–)North America plate motion is poorly constrained. This plate boundary fault transitions northward from pure strike slip to transpression where it comes onshore and undergoes a <25°, 30-km-long restraining double bend. To the east, a
Authors
Richard O. Lease, Peter J. Haeussler, Robert C. Witter, Daniel F. Stockli, Adrian Bender, Harvey Kelsey, Paul O'Sullivan

Amateur radio operators help fill earthquake donut holes

If you’ve ever seen tall antennas rising from everyday residences in your community and wondered what they are for, it could be that those homes belong to ham radio enthusiasts who enjoy communicating with each other over the airwaves. In addition to having fun with their radios and finding camaraderie, many ham radio operators are also prepared to help neighbors and authorities communicate during
Authors
David J. Wald, Vince Quitoriano, Oliver Dully

Response study of a 51-story-tall Los Angeles, California building inferred from motions of the Mw7.1 July 5, 2019 Ridgecrest, California earthquake

A 51-story building in downtown Los Angeles that is equipped with a seismic monitoring accelerometric array recorded the Mw7.1 Ridgecrest, California earthquake of July 5, 2019. The building is a dual-core reinforced-concrete shear-wall and perimeter-column structure with ~ 80% of floors constructed as post-tensioned flat slabs, which makes it a trending design. Using system identification methods
Authors
Mehmet Çelebi, Dan Swensen, Hamid Haddadi

A 100-km wide slump along the upper slope of the Canadian Arctic was likely preconditioned for failure by brackish pore water flushing

Exploration of the continental slope of the Canadian Beaufort Sea has revealed a remarkable coalescence of slide scars with headwalls between 130 and 1100 m water depth (mwd). With increased depth, the scars widen and merge into one gigantic regional slide scar that is more than 100 km wide below ~1100 mwd. To understand the development of these features, five sites were investigated with an Auton
Authors
C. K. Paull, S.R. Dallimore, D.W. Caress, R. Gwiazda, E. Lundsten, K. Anderson, H. Melling, Y.K. Jin, M.J. Duchesne, Kang S-G., S. Kim, M. Riedel, E.L. King, Thomas Lorenson

Evolution of fluid transmissivity and strength recovery of shear fractures under hydrothermal conditions

Geothermal systems rely on the presence of long-lived and high-volume, permeable fracture systems. The creation, reactivation, and sustainability of these systems depend on complex coupling among thermal, hydraulic, mechanical, and chemical (THMC) processes occurring in geothermal reservoirs. In part due to a paucity of experimental data, the evolution of fractures at geothermal conditions in resp
Authors
Tamara Nicole Jeppson, David A. Lockner, Brian D. Kilgore, Nicholas M. Beeler, Joshua M. Taron