Publications
Educational Publications
Educational Publications
Selected publications about earthquakes In plain language.
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Damping scaling factors for elastic response spectra for shallow crustal earthquakes in active tectonic regions: "average" horizontal component
Ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for elastic response spectra are typically developed at a 5% viscous damping ratio. In reality, however, structural and nonstructural systems can have other damping ratios. This paper develops a new model for a damping scaling factor (DSF) that can be used to adjust the 5% damped spectral ordinates predicted by a GMPE for damping ratios between 0.5% to 30
Authors
Sanaz Rezaeian, Yousef Bozorgnia, I.M. Idriss, Norman Abrahamson, Kenneth Campbell, Walter Silva
Injection-induced earthquakes
Earthquakes in unusual locations have become an important topic of discussion in both North America and Europe, owing to the concern that industrial activity could cause damaging earthquakes. It has long been understood that earthquakes can be induced by impoundment of reservoirs, surface and underground mining, withdrawal of fluids and gas from the subsurface, and injection of fluids into undergr
Authors
William L. Ellsworth
Crustal structure and fault geometry of the 2010 Haiti earthquake from temporary seismometer deployments
Haiti has been the locus of a number of large and damaging historical earthquakes. The recent 12 January 2010 Mw 7.0 earthquake affected cities that were largely unprepared, which resulted in tremendous losses. It was initially assumed that the earthquake ruptured the Enriquillo Plantain Garden fault (EPGF), a major active structure in southern Haiti, known from geodetic measurements and its geomo
Authors
Roby Douilly, Jennifer S. Haase, William L. Ellsworth, Marie‐Paule Bouin, Eric Calais, Steeve J. Symithe, John G. Armbruster, Bernard Mercier de Lépinay, Anne Deschamps, Saint‐Louis Mildor, Mark E. Meremonte, Susan E. Hough
InSAR Evidence for an active shallow thrust fault beneath the city of Spokane Washington, USA
In 2001, a nearly five month long sequence of shallow, mostly small magnitude earthquakes occurred beneath the city of Spokane, a city with a population of about 200,000, in the state of Washington. During most of the sequence, the earthquakes were not well located because seismic instrumentation was sparse. Despite poor-quality locations, the earthquake hypocenters were likely very shallow, becau
Authors
Charles W. Wicks, Craig S. Weaver, Paul Bodin, Brian L. Sherrod
Foreshocks during the nucleation of stick-slip instability
We report on laboratory experiments which investigate interactions between aseismic slip, stress changes, and seismicity on a critically stressed fault during the nucleation of stick-slip instability. We monitor quasi-static and dynamic changes in local shear stress and fault slip with arrays of gages deployed along a simulated strike-slip fault (2 m long and 0.4 m deep) in a saw cut sample of Sie
Authors
Gregory C. McLaskey, Brian D. Kilgore
Vs30 and spectral response from collocated shallow, active- and passive-source Vs data at 27 sites in Puerto Rico
Shear‐wave velocity (VS) and time‐averaged shear‐wave velocity to 30 m depth (VS30) are the key parameters used in seismic site response modeling and earthquake engineering design. Where VS data are limited, available data are often used to develop and refine map‐based proxy models of VS30 for predicting ground‐motion intensities. In this paper, we present shallow VS data from 27 sites in Puerto R
Authors
Jack K. Odum, William J. Stephenson, Robert A. Williams, Christa von Hillebrandt-Andrade
Characterizing and estimating noise in InSAR and InSAR time series with MODIS
InSAR time series analysis is increasingly used to image subcentimeter displacement rates of the ground surface. The precision of InSAR observations is often affected by several noise sources, including spatially correlated noise from the turbulent atmosphere. Under ideal scenarios, InSAR time series techniques can substantially mitigate these effects; however, in practice the temporal distributio
Authors
William D. Barnhart, Rowena B. Lohman
Spatial variability of "Did You Feel It?" intensity data: insights into sampling biases in historical earthquake intensity distributions
Recent parallel development of improved quantitative methods to analyze intensity distributions for historical earthquakes and of web‐based systems for collecting intensity data for modern earthquakes provides an opportunity to reconsider not only important individual historical earthquakes but also the overall characterization of intensity distributions for historical events. The focus of this st
Authors
Susan E. Hough
Quaternary extensional growth folding beneath Reno, Nevada, imaged by urban seismic profiling
We characterize shallow subsurface faulting and basin structure along a transect through heavily urbanized Reno, Nevada, with high‐resolution seismic reflection imaging. The 6.8 km of P‐wave data image the subsurface to approximately 800 m depth and delineate two subbasins and basin uplift that are consistent with structure previously inferred from gravity modeling in this region of the northern W
Authors
William J. Stephenson, Roxy N. Frary, John Louie, Jackson K. Odum
Rupture complexity of the Mw 8.3 sea of okhotsk earthquake: Rapid triggering of complementary earthquakes?
We derive a finite slip model for the 2013 Mw 8.3 Sea of Okhotsk Earthquake (Z = 610 km) by inverting calibrated teleseismic P waveforms. The inversion shows that the earthquake ruptured on a 10° dipping rectangular fault zone (140 km × 50 km) and evolved into a sequence of four large sub-events (E1–E4) with an average rupture speed of 4.0 km/s. The rupture process can be divided into two main sta
Authors
Shengji Wei, Don Helmberger, Zhongwen Zhan, Robert Graves
Meeting of the Central and Eastern U.S. (CEUS) Earthquake Hazards Program October 28–29, 2009
On October 28th and 29th, 2009, the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Hazards Program held a meeting of Central and Eastern United States investigators and interested parties in Memphis, Tennessee. The purpose of the meeting was to bring together the Central and Eastern United States earthquake-hazards community to present and discuss recent research results, to promote communication and collabora
Authors
Martitia Tuttle, Oliver Boyd, Natasha McCallister
Natural Hazards Science at the U.S. Geological Survey
The mission of the 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. The USGS conducts hazard research and works closely with stakeholders and cooperators to inform a broad range of plannin
Authors
Suzanne C. Perry, Lucile M. Jones, Robert R. Holmes