Publications

Damaging landslides in the Appalachian Plateau and scattered regions within the Midcontinent of North America highlight the need for landslide-hazard mapping and a better understanding of the geomorphic development of landslide terrains. The Plateau and Midcontinent have the necessary ingredients for landslides including sufficient relief, steep slope gradients, Pennsylvanian and Permian cyclothem

Newmark's sliding-block model is widely used to estimate coseismic slope performance. Early efforts to develop simple regression models to estimate Newmark displacement were based on analysis of the small number of strong-motion records then available. The current availability of a much larger set of strong-motion records dictates that these regression equations be updated. Regression equations we

In the first half of the 20th century, engineering geology and geotechnical engineering were in their infancy, and dams were often built where landslides provided valley constrictions, often without expert site investigation. Only the most important projects were subjected to careful geologic examination. Thus, dams were often built without complete understanding of the possible geotechnical probl

The Rincon Mountain District of Saguaro National Park occupies about 272 square kilometers of mountains, canyons, and alluvial fans in southeastern Arizona just east of Tucson. The park contains some of the last remaining habitat in the Tucson Basin of the lowland leopard frog that lives in the bedrock pools called tinajas in canyons at elevations between 850 and 1,800 meters. Those tinajas that c

No abstract available.

This report contains the following photographs and information related to the La Conchita, California, landslide: 1) Digital photographs taken by the author during a visit to the La Conchita landslide on January 14, 2005. 2) Correspondence related to the approval and release of USGS Open-File Report 2005-1067, Landslide Hazards at La Conchita, California. 3) A presentation on the La Conchita lands

Landslides, particularly debris flows, have long been a significant cause of damage and destruction to people and property in the Puget Sound region. Following the years of 1996 and 1997, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) designated Seattle as a 'Project Impact' city with the goal of encouraging the city to become more disaster resistant to the effects of landslides and other natural

Empirical rainfall thresholds and related information form a basis for forecasting landslides in the Seattle area. A formula for a cumulative rainfall threshold (CT), P3=3.5–0.67P15, defined by rainfall amounts (in inches) during the last 3 days (72 hours), P3, and the previous 15 days (360 hours), P15, was developed from analysis of historical data for 91 landslides that occurred as part of 3-day

The October 8, 2005, Kashmir earthquake (M 7.6) triggered several thousand landslides, mainly rock falls and rock slides, in the epicentral area near the cities of Muzafarrabad and Balakot, Pakistan. Most of these were shallow, coalescing rock slides emanating from highly sheared and deformed limestone and dolomite of the Precambrian Muzafarrabad Formation. The largest landslide triggered by the e

No abstract available.

Introduction: In 2001, the U.S. Geological Survey Landslide Hazards Program provided funding for seven State geological surveys to report on the status of landslide investigation strategies in each of their States, and to suggest improved ways to approach the tracking of landslides, their effects, losses associated with the landslides, and hazard mitigation strategies. Each State was to provide

Massive rock failures pose one of the greatest hazards at stratovolcanoes; more than 20,000 fatalities have resulted worldwide from historical volcano edifice collapses. Although numerous processes can destabilize an edifice, gravitational instability is strongly influenced by the interplay of topography, variable potential failure surfaces, and the three-dimensional (3-D) distributions of rock st