Earthquake Science Center
Publications
The LArge-n Seismic Survey in Oklahoma (LASSO) experiment
In 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey deployed more than 1,800 vertical-component nodal seismometers in Grant County, Oklahoma to study induced seismic activity associated with production of the Mississippi Limestone Play. The LArge-n Seismic Survey in Oklahoma (LASSO) array operated for approximately one month, covering a 25-km-by-32-km region with...
Dougherty, S.; Cochran, Elizabeth S.; Harrington, R. M.
The HayWired earthquake scenario—Societal consequences
The HayWired Earthquake Scenario—Societal Consequences is the third volume of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Scientific Investigations Report 2017–5013, which describes the HayWired scenario, developed by USGS and its partners. The scenario is a hypothetical yet scientifically realistic earthquake sequence that is being used to better understand...
Detweiler, Shane T.; Wein, Anne M. Stormquakes
Seismic signals from ocean-solid Earth interactions are ubiquitously recorded on our planet. However, these wavefields are typically incoherent in most frequency bands limiting their utilization for understanding ocean dynamics or solid Earth properties. In contrast, we find that during large storms such as hurricanes and Nor’easters the...
Fan, Wenyuan; McGuire, Jeffrey; de Groot-Hedlin, C. D.; Hedlin, M. A. H.; Coats, S.; Fiedler, J. W. Physical property characteristics of gas hydrate-bearing reservoir and associated seal sediments collected during NGHP-02 in the Krishna-Godavari Basin, in the offshore of India
India’s National Gas Hydrate Program Expedition 02 (NGHP-02), was conducted to better understand geologic controls on gas hydrate occurrence and morphology, targeting potentially coarse-grained sediments near the base of the continental slope offshore eastern India. This study combines seismic, logging-while-drilling data, and a petroleum systems...
Jang, Junbong; Waite, William F.; Stern, Laura A.; Collett, Timothy S.; Kumar, Pushpendra Ensembles of ETAS models provide optimal operational earthquake forecasting during swarms: Insights from the 2015 San Ramon, California swarm
Earthquake swarms, typically modeled as time-varying changes in background seismicity that are driven by external processes such as fluid flow or aseismic creep, present challenges for operational earthquake forecasting. While the time decay of aftershock sequences can be estimated with the modified Omori law, it is difficult to forecast the...
Llenos, Andrea L.; Michael, Andrew J. κ0 and broadband site spectra in Southern California from source model-constrained inversion
Ground-motion modeling requires accurate representation of the earthquake source, path, and site. Site amplification is often modeled by VS30, the time-averaged shear-wave velocity of the top 30 meters of the Earth’s surface, though recent studies find that its ability to accurately predict site effects varies. Another measure of the site is κ0,...
Klimasewski, Alexis; Sahakian, Valerie J.; Baltay, Annemarie S.; Boatwright, John; Fletcher, Jon Peter; Baker, Lawrence Temporal patterns of induced seismicity in Oklahoma revealed from multi-station template matching
Over the past decade, Oklahoma became the most seismically active region of the mid-Continental United States as a result of industry operations. However, seismic network limitations and completeness of earthquake catalogs have restricted the types of analyses that can be performed. By applying multi-station template matching on the 23,889...
Skoumal, Robert; Brudzinski, Michael R.; Currie, Brian S.; Ries, Rosamiel Characterizing and imaging sedimentary strata using depth-converted spectral ratios: An example from the Atlantic Coastal Plain of the Eastern U.S.
Unconsolidated, near-surface sediments can have a profound influence on the amplitudes and frequencies of ground shaking during earthquakes, and these effects should be accounted for when using amplitude observations for seismic hazard assessments. This study explores methods to use teleseismic arrivals recorded on linear receiver arrays to...
Pratt, Thomas L.
Santa Rosa's past and future earthquakes
Santa Rosa is no stranger to earthquakes. This northern California city was damaged several times in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by shaking from earthquakes, culminating in the devastating earthquake of 1906, whose rupture passed 20 miles to the west of the city on the San Andreas Fault. Then in 1969, Santa Rosa was again strongly...
Hecker, Suzanne; McPhee, Darcy K.; Langenheim, Victoria E.; Watt, Janet T. Preliminary report on engineering and geological effects of the July 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence
The Ridgecrest Earthquake sequence included a foreshock event on July 4 2019 (M6.4) and a M7.1 mainshock event on July 5 2019. These events occurred in the Eastern California Shear Zone, near Indian Wells Valley, south of China Lake and west of Searles Valley. GEER has partnered with several organizations to collect perishable data and document...
Stewart, Jonathan P.; Brandenberg, Scott J; Wang, Pengfei; Nweke, Chukwuebuka C; Hudson, Kenneth; Mazzoni, Silvia; Bozorgnia, Yousef; Hudnut, Kenneth W.; Davis, Craig A.; Ahdi, Sean K; Zareian, Farzin; Fayaz, Jawad; Koehler, Richard D; Chupik, Colin; Pierce, Ian; Williams, Alana; Akciz, Sinan; Hudson, Martin B; Kishida, Tadahiro; Brooks, Benjamin A.; Gold, Ryan D.; Ponti, Daniel J.; Scharer, Katherine; McPhillips, Devin; Duross, Christopher; Ericksen, Todd; Hernandez, Janis .; Patton, Jay; Olson, Brian; Dawson, Timothy E.; Treiman, Jerome; Blake, Kelly; Buchhuber, Jeffrey; Madugo, Chris L M; Sun, Joseph; Donnellan, Andrea; Lyzenga, Greg; Conway, Erik Depth determination of the 2010 El Mayor‐Cucapah earthquake sequence (M ≥ 4.0)
The 2010 MW 7.2 El Mayor‐Cucapah earthquake ruptured a zone of ~120 km in length in northern Baja California. The geographic distribution of this earthquake sequence was well constrained by waveform relocation. The depth distribution, however, was poorly determined as it is near the edge of, or outside, the Southern California Seismic...
Yu, C.; Hauksson, E.; Zhan, Z.; Cochran, Elizabeth S.; Helmberger, D.
Petrologic and mineral physics database for use with the U.S. Geological Survey National Crustal Model
We present a petrologic and mineral physics database as part of the U.S. Geological Survey National Crustal Model (NCM). Each of 209 geologic units, 134 of which are currently part of the geologic framework within the NCM, was assigned a mineralogical composition according to generalized classifications with some refinement for specific geologic...
Sowers, Theron; Boyd, Oliver S.