Publications
Educational Publications
Educational Publications
Selected publications about earthquakes In plain language.
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Seismicity of the Earth 1900-2010 Mexico and vicinity
Mexico, located in one of the world's most seismically active regions, lies on three large tectonic plates: the North American plate, Pacific plate, and Cocos plate. The relative motion of these tectonic plates causes frequent earthquakes and active volcanism and mountain building. Mexico's most seismically active region is in southern Mexico where the Cocos plate is subducting northwestward benea
Authors
Susan Rhea, Richard L. Dart, Antonio H. Villaseñor, Gavin P. Hayes, Arthur C. Tarr, Kevin P. Furlong, Harley M. Benz
Recent faulting in western Nevada revealed by multi-scale seismic reflection
The main goal of this study is to compare different reflection methods used to image subsurface structure within different physical environments in western Nevada. With all the methods employed, the primary goal is fault imaging for structural information toward geothermal exploration and seismic hazard estimation. We use seismic CHIRP (a swept-frequency marine acquisition system), weight drop (an
Authors
Roxanna N. Frary, John N. Louie, William J. Stephenson, Jackson K. Odum, Annie Kell, Amy Eisses, Graham M. Kent, Neal W. Driscoll, Robert Karlin, Robert L. Baskin, Satish Pullammanappallil, Lee M. Liberty
Constraints on the long‐period moment‐dip tradeoff for the Tohoku earthquake
Since the work of Kanamori and Given (1981), it has been recognized that shallow, pure dip‐slip earthquakes excite long‐period surface waves such that it is difficult to independently constrain the moment (M0) and the dip (δ) of the source mechanism, with only the product M0 sin(2δ) being well constrained. Because of this, it is often assumed that the primary discrepancies between the moments of s
Authors
Victor C. Tsai, Gavin P. Hayes, Zacharie Duputel
Preface to the Focused Issue on the 22 February 2011 Magnitude 6.2 Christchurch Earthquake
The 22 February 2011 magnitude 6.2 Christchurch earthquake, centered southeast of Christchurch, was part of the aftershock sequence that has been occurring since the September 2010 magnitude 7.1 quake near Darfield, 40 km west of the city. The Christchurch earthquake killed more than 180 people, damaged or destroyed more than 100,000 buildings, and is New Zealand's most deadly disaster since the e
Authors
Erol Kalkan
The role of dyking and fault control in the rapid onset of eruption at Chaitén Volcano, Chile
Rhyolite is the most viscous of liquid magmas, so it was surprising that on 2 May 2008 at Chaitén Volcano, located in Chile’s southern Andean volcanic zone, rhyolitic magma migrated from more than 5 km depth in less than 4 hours and erupted explosively with only two days of detected precursory seismic activity. The last major rhyolite eruption before that at Chaitén was the largest volcanic erupti
Authors
Charles W. Wicks, J. Carlos de la Llera, Luis E. Lara, Jacob B. Lowenstern
Probabilistic seismic hazard assessment including site effects for Evansville, Indiana, and the surrounding region
We provide a probabilistic seismic hazard assessment for the Evansville, Indiana region incorporating information from new surficial geologic mapping efforts on the part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Kentucky and Indiana State Geological Surveys, as well as information on the thickness and properties of near surface soils and their associated uncertainties. The subsurface informatio
Authors
Jennifer S. Haase, Tim Bowling, Robert L. Nowack, Yoon S. Choi, Chris H. Cramer, Oliver S. Boyd, Robert A. Bauer
Coulomb 3.3 Graphic-rich deformation and stress-change software for earthquake, tectonic, and volcano research and teaching-user guide
Coulomb is intended both for publication-directed research and for college and graduate school classroom instruction. We believe that one learns best when one can see the most and can explore alternatives quickly. So the principal feature of Coulomb is ease of input, rapid interactive modification, and intuitive visualization of the results. The program has menus and check-items, and dialogue boxe
Authors
Shingi Toda, Ross S. Stein, Volkan Sevilgen, Jian Lin
Earthquake scenario ground motions for the urban area of Evansville, Indiana
The Wabash Valley seismic zone and the New Madrid seismic zone are the closest large earthquake source zones to Evansville, Indiana. The New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812, over 180 kilometers (km) from Evansville, produced ground motions with a Modified Mercalli Intensity of VII near Evansville, the highest intensity observed in Indiana. Liquefaction evidence has been documented less than 40 km
Authors
Jennifer S. Haase, Robert L. Nowack, Chris H. Cramer, Oliver S. Boyd, Robert A. Bauer
Site characterization and site response in Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Waveform analysis of aftershocks of the Mw7.0 Haiti earthquake of 12 January 2010 reveals amplification of ground motions at sites within the Cul de Sac valley in which Port-au-Prince is situated. Relative to ground motions recorded at a hard-rock reference site, peak acceleration values are amplified by a factor of approximately 1.8 at sites on low-lying Mio-Pliocene deposits in central Port-au-P
Authors
Susan E. Hough, Alan K. Yong, Jean Robert Altidor, Dieuseul Anglade, Douglas D. Given, Saint-Louis Mildor
Moment tensor inversions using strong motion waveforms of Taiwan TSMIP data, 1993–2009
Earthquake source parameters are important for earthquake studies and seismic hazard assessment. Moment tensors are among the most important earthquake source parameters, and are now routinely derived using modern broadband seismic networks around the world. Similar waveform inversion techniques can also apply to other available data, including strong-motion seismograms. Strong-motion waveforms ar
Authors
Kaiwen Chang, Wu-Cheng Chi, Yuancheng Gung, Douglas Dreger, William H. K. Lee, Hung-Chie Chiu
20 cool facts about the New Madrid Seismic Zone-Commemorating the bicentennial of the New Madrid earthquake sequence, December 1811-February 1812 [poster]
This poster summarizes a few of the more significant facts about the series of large earthquakes that struck the New Madrid seismic zone of southeastern Missouri, northeastern Arkansas, and adjacent parts of Tennessee and Kentucky from December 1811 to February 1812. Three earthquakes in this sequence had a magnitude (M) of 7.0 or greater. The first earthquake occurred on December 16, 1811, at 2:1
Authors
R. A. Williams, N.S. McCallister, R. L. Dart
Liquefaction hazard for the region of Evansville, Indiana
We calculated liquefaction potential index for a grid of sites in the Evansville, Indiana area for two scenario earthquakes-a magnitude 7.7 in the New Madrid seismic zone and a M6.8 in the Wabash Valley seismic zone. For the latter event, peak ground accelerations range from 0.13 gravity to 0.81 gravity, sufficiently high to be of concern for liquefaction.
Recently acquired cone-penetrometer test
Authors
Jennifer S. Haase, Yoon S. Choi, Robert L. Nowack, Chris H. Cramer, Oliver S. Boyd, Robert A. Bauer