Publications

A seismic-refraction profile indicates that the crust of the Earth increases in thickness by as much as 5 km over a horizontal distance of less than 25 km northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. This feature correlates with a decrease in the Bouguer anomaly and an increase in the average surface altitude.

Seismic-refraction measurements from chemical explosions near San Francisco, California, and Fallon and Eureka, Nevada, were made along a line extending nearly 700 km inland from San Francisco across the Coast Ranges, Great Valley, Sierra Nevada, and Basin and Range Province. The velocity of Pg in the Basin and Range Province was found to be 6.0 km/sec. Between Fallon and Eureka the velocity of Pn

This paper treats the results of a study of seismic waves generated by eight nuclear explosions and recorded at 31 locations between the Nevada Test Site (NTS) and Ordway, Colorado. The line of recording stations crosses the eastern part of the Basin and Range Province, the Colorado Plateau, the southern Rocky Mountains, and extends into the Great Plains. In the eastern Basin and Range Province an

The U.S. Geological Survey, with the assistance of United ElectroDynamics, Inc., completed ten weeks of seismic-refraction field work during the summer of 1962 in the southwestern part of the United States. This work was a continuation of a program initiated in 1961 to study traveltimes and seismic propagation paths in the earth?s crust and upper mantle in the western United States. A total of 761

Seismic waves generated by underground nuclear and chemical explosions have been recorded in a network of nearly 2,000 stations in the western conterminous United States as a part of the VELA UNIFORM program. The network extends from eastern Colorado to the California coastline and from central Idaho to the border of the United States and Mexico. The speed of compressional waves in the upper-mantl

During 1963 the U.S. Geological Survey, with the assistance of United ElectroDynamics, Inc., recorded five separate reversed seismic profiles. In addition to these profiles, the U.S. Geological Survey participated in a seismic-calibration program for the DRIBBLE experiment at Tatum Dome, Mississippi, a 20,000-pound shot near Dexter, Missouri, and in a cooperative seismic experiment in the Lake Sup

The value of seismic-model studies as an aid to understanding wave propagation in the Earth's crust was recognized by early investigators (Tatel and Tuve, 1955). Preliminary model results were very promising, but progress in model seismology has been restricted by two problems: (1) difficulties in the development of models with continuously variable velocity-depth functions, and (2) difficulties i

This technical letter contains a brief review of the operations which are involved in digital processing of array seismic recordings by the methods of velocity filtering, summation, cross-multiplication and integration, and by combinations of these operations (the "UK Method" and multiple correlation). Examples are presented of analyses by the several techniques on array recordings which were obta

The U.S. Geological Survey detonated 86 large charges of chemical explosives in the western United States from 6 June to 9 August 1962, in a study of crustal structure in the western United States. This Technical Letter consists of two tables containing information about these explosions. Table I gives a brief geographical description of the shotpoints, and Table II gives the date, time, location,

Two reversed seismic-refraction profiles were recorded between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1961. The three shotpoints were located in Santa Monica Bay, offshore near San Francisco, and at Camp Roberts, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The velocity of Pg along these profiles is 6.1 ± 0.1 km/sec, with possible exceptions near San Francisco and near Los Angeles, where the sca

The U.S. Geological Survey has used 23 different shotpoints during two seasons of field work in our seismic study of crustal structure in western United States. Without exception, it has been found that under-water shotpoints result in a more efficient conversion of explosive energy into seismic energy than do drilled-hole shotpoints. This experience, together with elimination of drilling costs, h

The time of first arrival of seismic waves generated by 4 underground nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) and recorded along a line extending north into southern Idaho is expressed as T0 = 0. 00 + Δ/3.0 (assumed), T1 = 0 .40 + Δ/6.03, and T2 = 6.15 + Δ/7.84, where time is in seconds and the shot-detector distance (Δ) is in km. Assuming constant velocities and horizontal layers, crusta