Publications

The Satellite Telemetry Earthquake Monitoring Program was started in FY 1968 to evaluate the applicability of satellite relay telemetry in the collection of seismic data from a large number of dense seismograph clusters laid out along the major fault systems of western North America. Prototype clusters utilizing phone-line telemetry were then being installed by the National Center for...

The Chilean earthquake sequence of May 21–22, 1960, was accompanied by linear zones of tectonic warping, including both uplift and subsidence relative to sea level. The region involved is more than 200 km wide and about 1000 km long, and lies along the continental margin between latitude 37° and 48° S. Significant horizontal strains accompanied the vertical movements in parts of the...

An ultrasonic method for determining velocity has been developed that is independent of phase‐change errors due to reflection of specimen waves from coupling films. The method also eliminates the possibility of error due to conditions of nonhydrostatic stress at a specimen‐transducer or specimen‐delay line interface. Preliminary data are given for Alcoa 2024‐T4 aluminum and are compared...

A network of 64 seismic-refraction profiles recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey in California and Nevada and adjacent areas of Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, and Arizona from 1961 to 1963 was re-interpreted. From record sections compiled for all profiles, a basic travel-time diagram can be derived. In addition to the first arrivals on profiles in the Snake River Plain, the northern Basin and...

One of the greatest earthquakes of all time struck south-central Alaska on March 27, 1964. Strong motion lasted longer than for most recorded earthquakes, and more land surface was dislocated, vertically and horizontally, than by any known previous temblor. Never before were so many effects on earth processes and on the works of man available for study by scientists and engineers over so...

In the 1964 Alaska earthquake, the federally owned Alaska Railroad sustained damage of more than $35 million: 54 percent of the cost for port facilities; 25 percent, roadbed and track; 9 percent, buildings and utilities; 7 percent, bridges and culverts; and 5 percent, landslide removal. Principal causes of damage were: (1) landslides, landslide-generated waves, and seismic sea waves that...

Detailed mineralogical and chemical study of sphalerite-rich lead ores from Flat River, Mo., confirms the presence of anomalous amounts of silver in the sphalerite. Although silver is closely associated with chlorine and no silver sulfide minerals were identified, geochemical considerations indicate the silver may be in the form of discrete submicron-size grains of sulfide rather than...

The 1964 earthquake caused wide-spread damage to inhabited places throughout more than 60,000 square miles of south-central Alaska. This report describes damage to all communities in the area except Anchorage, Whittier, Homer, Valdez, Seward, the communities of the Kodiak group of islands, and communities in the Copper River Basin; these were discussed in previous chapters of the...

During the 1964 Alaska earthquake, tectonic deformation uplifted the southern end of Montague Island as much as 33 feet or more. The uplifted shoreline is rapidly being modified by subaerial and marine processes. The new raised beach is formed in bedrock, sand, gravel, and deltaic bay-head deposits, and the effect of each erosional process was measured in each material. Fieldwork was...

The March 27, 1964, earthquake was accomp anied by crustal deformation-including warping, horizontal distortion, and faulting-over probably more than 110,000 square miles of land and sea bottom in south-central Alaska. Regional uplift and subsidence occurred mainly in two nearly parallel elongate zones, together about 600 miles long and as much as 250 miles wide, that lie along the...

The Murray fracture has been thought to extend ashore into the Transverse Ranges of California, but a geophysical study shows no evidence of structural continuity between these features. Instead, basement morphology typical of the Murray fracture zone ends where its known magnetic and bathymetric expression dies out. Similarly, east-west Transverse Range structures change direction so...

This is the second in a series of six reports that the U.S. Geological Survey published on the results of a comprehensive geologic study that began, as a reconnaissance survey, within 24 hours after the March 27, 1964, Magnitude 9.2 Great Alaska Earthquake and extended, as detailed investigations, through several field seasons. The 1964 Great Alaska earthquake was the largest earthquake...