Images

Shaking during the 1964 Alaska earthquake was felt as far away as Seattle, Washington, and its tsunamis caused 129 fatalities and about $2.3 billion in property losses (2013 dollars).

USGS research geologist Kate Scharer with her finger on the Fairweather Fault in southeast Alaska. The magnitude 7.8 Lituya Bay earthquake caused shaking that toppled trees along the fault, which left a break in the forest shown here.

Nearly 60 years after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Lituya Bay, Alaska — leading to a tsunami that devastated the area — six U.S. Geological Survey geologists revisited the isolated region of Alaska, to pick up where their scientific predecessors left off.

Periodic calving of ice from the snout of South Crillon Glacier.

Trench site along the southern Fairweather Fault, in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska. The alluvial fan at left consists of lake, stream channel and debris flow deposits impounded by the Fairweather Fault scarp, at right.

The field team included USGS geologists Rob Witter, Adrian Bender, Chris DuRoss, Peter Haeussler, Richard Lease and Kate Scharer

View of Glacier Bay National Park from the air.

Standing masonry buildings in Kathmandu suggest that shaking was not amplified in the valley sediments surrounding Kathmandu

Major damage was more likely to monuments in Kathmandu, Nepal than more modern structures

Villagers in Kerauja below a rock slide that resulted from a magnitude 7.8 earthquake on April 25, 2015 in Gorkha district, Nepal.

View of geologists pointing to fault in a trench dug across one of the ruptures from the 2014 South Napa earthquake. From front to rear: Alexandra Pickering, Suzanne Hecker, Aaron Page (all USGS). Trench located approximately 3 miles NW of downtown Napa, CA.

San Jose Earthquakes' Avaya Stadium.

A brain coral boulder eight feet in diameter stands 750 feet inland in the British Virgin Islands. Geologists say that the coral was brought ashore, probably alive, by an unusual tsunami or storm between the years 1200 and 1480.

Increased flow over rock riffle in Sonoma Creek seen after South Napa Earthquake of August 24, 2014.

Location: Sonoma Creek downstream of the Agua Caliente Road Bridge, Sonoma County, California.

Left-stepping en echelon fractures characteristic of right-lateral fault displacement at the ground surface. Total fault slip measured near this location was 40-46 cm. Photo taken on main rupture strand near Buhman Rd.

Right-lateral displacement of centerline on Redwood Rd of 2.4 cm along a secondary rupture strand, near the north end of the fault rupture.

Right-lateral offset of vineyard row of nearly 40 cm. Photo taken on the main fault rupture near Buhman Rd.

Pavement buckling and tented sidewalk resulting from ~14 cm of compression on Sandybrook Ln., north end of main rupture.

Right lateral offset of Browns Valley Rd. centerline, on a secondary fault strand.

Driveway buckling across secondary fault strand at Browns Valley Rd. 

Damaged unreinforced masonry building on Main St. in Napa Downtown.