Publications

The Mw6.1 South Napa earthquake occurred near Napa, California on August 24, 2014 (UTC), and was the largest inland earthquake in Northern California since the 1989 Mw6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake. The first report of the earthquake from the Northern California Earthquake Data Center (NCEDC) indicates a hypocentral depth of 11.0km with longitude and latitude of (122.3105°W, 38.217°N). Surface rupture

Subduction earthquakes similar to the 2011 Japan and 2010 Chile events will occur in the future in the Cascadia subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest. In this paper, nonlinear dynamic analyses are carried out on 24 buildings designed according to outdated and modern building codes for the cities of Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The results indicate that the median collapse capacity

Tectonic tremor (TT) and low-frequency earthquakes (LFEs) have been found in the deeper crust of various tectonic environments globally in the last decade. The spatial-temporal behaviour of LFEs provides insight into deep fault zone processes. In this study, we examine recurrence times from a 12-yr catalogue of 88 LFE families with ∼730 000 LFEs in the vicinity of the Parkfield section of the San

The proposed Fallon FORGE site lies within and adjacent to the Naval Air Station Fallon (NASF) directly southeast of the town of Fallon, Nevada, within the large basin of the Carson Sink in west-central Nevada. The site is located on two parcels that include land owned by the NASF and leased and owned by Ormat Nevada, Inc. The Carson Sink in the vicinity of the Fallon site is covered by Quaternary

In their 2013 paper, Bouchon, Durand, Marsan, Karabulut, 3 and Schmittbuhl (BDMKS) claim to see significant accelerating seismicity before M 6.5 interplate mainshocks, but not before intraplate mainshocks, reflecting a preparatory process before large events. We concur with the finding of BDMKS that their interplate dataset has significantly more fore- shocks than their intraplate dataset; however

Prior to calculating time-independent and -dependent earthquake probabilities for faults in the Wasatch Front region, the Working Group on Utah Earthquake Probabilities (WGUEP) updated a seismic-source model for the region (Wong and others, 2014) and evaluated 19 historical regressions on earthquake magnitude (M). These regressions relate M to fault parameters for historical surface-faulting earth

We describe observations of dynamic rupture events that spontaneously arise on meter-scale laboratory earthquake experiments. While low-frequency slip of the granite sample occurs in a relatively uniform and crack-like manner, instruments capable of detecting high frequency motions show that some parts of the fault slip abruptly (velocity >100 mm∙s-1, acceleration >20 km∙s-2) while the majority of

Creation of an Enhanced Geothermal System relies on stimulation of fracture permeability through self-propping shear failure that creates a complex fracture network with high surface area for efficient heat transfer. In 2010, shear stimulation was carried out in well 27-15 at Desert Peak geothermal field, Nevada, by injecting cold water at pressure less than the minimum principal stress. An order-

Photomosaics are commonly used to construct maps of paleoseismic trench exposures, but the conventional process of manually using image‐editing software is time consuming and produces undesirable artifacts and distortions. Herein, we document and evaluate the application of image‐based modeling (IBM) for creating photomosaics and 3D models of paleoseismic trench exposures, illustrated with a case‐

Deformation is commonly accommodated by strain partitioning on multiple, independent strike-slip and dip-slip faults in continental settings of oblique plate convergence. As a corollary, individual faults tend to exhibit one sense of slip – normal, reverse, or strike-slip – until whole-scale changes in boundary conditions reactivate preexisting faults in a new deformation regime. In this study, we

Fossil coral microatolls from fringing reefs above the great (MW 8.6) megathrust rupture of 2005 record uplift during the historically reported great earthquake of 1861. Such evidence spans nearly the entire 400-km strike length of the 2005 rupture, which was previously shown to be bounded by two persistent barriers to seismic rupture. Moreover, at sites where we have constrained the 1861 uplift a

The Yakima fold and thrust belt (YFTB) deforms the Columbia River Basalt Group flows of Washington State. The YFTB fault geometries and slip rates are crucial parameters for seismic‐hazard assessments of nearby dams and nuclear facilities, yet there are competing models for the subsurface fault geometry involving shallowly rooted versus deeply rooted fault systems. The YFTB is also thought to be a