Publications

There are systematic differences in the attenuation of damaging earthquake ground motions between different stable continental regions (SCRs). Seismic intensity and weak-motion data show that the attenuation in seismic waves for eastern North America (ENA) is less than for India, Africa, Australia, and northwest Europe. If ENA ground-motion attenuation relations are used in seismic hazard models f

Near-surface site factors and the effects of deep structural focusing were estimated in the Santa Monica Mountains and Santa Monica, California, from a portable array of 75 seismic stations deployed during the Los Angeles Region Seismic Experiment, Phase II (LARSE II). The objective was to examine further the origin of seismic wave amplification in the region of intense damage south of the Santa M

We present a P wave velocity model derived from active source seismic data collected during the 1994 Los Angeles Region Seismic Experiment. Our model extends previously published upper crustal velocity models to mantle depths. Our model was developed by both ray tracing through a layered model and calculating travel times through a gridded model. It includes an 8-km-thick crustal root centered ben

A series of ERS radar interferograms that collectively span the time interval from July 1992 to August 2000 reveal that a presumed magma body located 6.6 ??? 0.5 km beneath the southwest flank of the Mount Peulik volcano inflated 0.051 ??? 0.005 km3 between October 1996 and September 1998. Peulik has been active only twice during historical time, in 1814 and 1852, and the volcano was otherwise qui

The relationship between small-magnitude seismicity and large-scale crustal faulting along the Hayward Fault, California, is investigated using a double-difference (DD) earthquake location algorithm. We used the DD method to determine high-resolution hypocenter locations of the seismicity that occurred between 1967 and 1998. The DD technique incorporates catalog travel time data and relative P and

We have determined high-resolution hypocenters for 45,000+ earthquakes that occurred between 1980 and 2000 in the Long Valley caldera area using a double-difference earthquake location algorithm and routinely determined arrival times. The locations reveal numerous discrete fault planes in the southern caldera and adjacent Sierra Nevada block (SNB). Intracaldera faults include a series of east/west

We introduce a quantitative approach to paleoearthquake dating and apply it to paleoseismic data from the Wrightwood and Pallett Creek sites on the southern San Andreas fault. We illustrate how stratigraphic ordering, sedimentological, and historical data can be used quantitatively in the process of estimating earthquake ages. Calibrated radiocarbon age distributions are used directly from layer d

The Hayward fault, a major branch of the right-lateral San Andreas fault system, traverses the densely populated eastern San Francisco Bay region, California. We conducted a paleoseismic investigation to better understand the Hayward fault's past earthquake behavior. The site is near the south end of Tyson's Lagoon, a sag pond formed in a right step of the fault in Fremont. Because the Hayward fau

The San Timoteo badlands is an area of uplift and erosional dissection that has formed as a result of late Quaternary uplift along a restraining bend in the San Jacinto fault, of the San Andreas fault system in southern California. This bend currently is located in a region where late Quaternary deposits and associated surfaces have formed in lower San Timoteo Canyon. We have used morphometric ana

By measuring relative earthquake arrival times using waveform cross correlation and locating earthquakes using the double difference technique, we are able to reduce hypocentral errors by 1 to 2 orders of magnitude over routine locations for nearly 8000 events along a 35-km section of the Calaveras Fault. This represents ∼92% of all seismicity since 1984 and includes the rupture zone of the M 6.2

We present a new set of contour maps of the seismic structure of North America and the surrounding ocean basins. These maps include the crustal thickness, whole-crustal average P-wave and S-wave velocity, and seismic velocity of the uppermost mantle, that is, Pn and Sn. We found the following: (1) The average thickness of the crust under North America is 36.7 km (standard deviation [s.d.] ±8.4 km)

Voluminous anorthosite intrusions are common in mid-Proterozoic crust. Historically, two end-member models have been proposed for the origin of these anorthosites. In the first model anorthosites derive from fractionation of a mantle source leaving a residue of metagabbro in the lower crust; in the second model anorthosites are the product of partial melting of the lower crust with residual pyroxe