Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Publications

Filter Total Items: 1848

Simulations of potential runout and deposition of the Ferguson rockslide, Merced River Canyon, California

INTRODUCTION An active rockslide in Merced River Canyon was first noticed on April 29, 2006 when a few rocks rolled onto Highway 140 between mileposts 103 and 104, compromising traffic on this highway and signaling the onset of renewed activity of the Ferguson rockslide. State highway 140 is one of the main entrances to Yosemite National Park and is the primary road for large commercial trucks
Authors
Roger P. Denlinger

Modeling 3-D slope stability of coastal bluffs using 3-D ground-water flow, Southwestern Seattle, Washington

Landslides are a common problem on coastal bluffs throughout the world. Along the coastal bluffs of the Puget Sound in Seattle, Washington, landslides range from small, shallow failures to large, deep-seated landslides. Landslides of all types can pose hazards to human lives and property, but deep-seated landslides are of significant concern because their large areal extent can cause extensive pro
Authors
Dianne L. Brien, Mark E. Reid

Earthquake Rate Model 2.2 of the 2007 Working Group for California Earthquake Probabilities, Appendix D: Magnitude-Area Relationships

Summary To estimate the down-dip coseismic fault dimension, W, the Executive Committee has chosen the Nazareth and Hauksson (2004) method, which uses the 99% depth of background seismicity to assign W. For the predicted earthquake magnitude-fault area scaling used to estimate the maximum magnitude of an earthquake rupture from a fault's length, L, and W, the Committee has assigned equal weight
Authors
Ross S. Stein

The role of fault zone drilling

The objective of fault-zone drilling projects is to directly study the physical and chemical processes that control deformation and earthquake generation within active fault zones. An enormous amount of field, laboratory, and theoretical work has been directed toward the mechanical and hydrological behavior of faults over the past several decades. Nonetheless, it is currently impossible to differe
Authors
M.D. Zoback, Stephen H. Hickman, William L. Ellsworth

Rotational Seismology Workshop of February 2006

Introduction A successful workshop titled 'Measuring the Rotation Effects of Strong Ground Motion' was held simultaneously in Menlo Park and Pasadena via video conference on 16 February 2006. The purpose of the Workshop and this Report are to summarize existing data and theory and to explore future challenges for rotational seismology, including free-field strong motion, structural strong motio
Authors
John R. Evans, A. Cochard, Vladimir Graizer, Bor-Shouh Huang, Kenneth W. Hudnut, Charles R. Hutt, H. Igel, William H.K. Lee, Chun-Chi Liu, Eugeniusz Majewski, Robert Nigbor, Erdal Safak, William U. Savage, U. Schreiber, Roman Teisseyre, Mihailo Trifunac, J. Wassermann, Chien-Fu Wu

Near-Surface Structure and Velocities of the Northeastern Santa Cruz Mountains and the Western Santa Clara Valley, California, From Seismic Imaging

Introduction The Santa Clara Valley (SCV) is located in the southern San Francisco Bay area of California and is bounded by the Santa Cruz Mountains to the southwest, the Diablo Ranges to the northeast, and the San Francisco Bay to the north (Fig. 1). The SCV, which includes the City of San Jose, numerous smaller cities, and much of the high-technology manufacturing and research area commonly r
Authors
R. D. Catchings, G. Gandhok, M. R. Goldman, Clare Steedman

San Andreas Fault Zone mineralogy, geochemistry, and physical properties from SAFOD cuttings and core

No abstract available.
Authors
J. G. Solum, S. Hickman, D. A. Lockner, S. Tembe, J.P. Evans, S. D. Draper, D. C. Barton, D. L. Kirschner, J. Chester, F. M. Chester, B.A. van der Pluijm, A. M. Schleicher, Diane E. Moore, Carolyn A. Morrow, K. R. Bradbury, W. M. Calvin, T.-F. Wong

Seismology inside the fault zone: Applications to fault-zone properties and rupture dynamics

No abstract available.
Authors
W.L. Ellsworth, P.E. Malin, K. Imanishi, S.W. Roecker, R. Nadeau, V. Oye, C.H. Thurber, F. Waldhauser, N. L. Boness, S.H. Hickman, M.D. Zobach

Crust and lithospheric structure – Global crustal structure

The Earth’s crust has played an important role in all aspects of this planet’s evolution. This chapter presents a review of our current understanding of the physical properties of the crust on a global basis. This understanding comes from extensive seismic measurements using many techniques, as well as nonseismic geophysics, including gravity, magnetic, geoelectric, and heat flow measurements. Sei
Authors
Walter D. Mooney

Beating effect identified from seismic responses of instrumented buildings

Beating effects observed in the recorded responses of buildings are examined in this paper. Beating is a periodic, resonating and prolonged vibrational behavior caused by distinctive close coupling of translational and torsional modes of a lightly damped structure. Repetitively stored potential energy during the coupled translational and torsional deformations turns into repetitive vibrational ene
Authors
Mehmet Çelebi

Protecting Your Family From Earthquakes-The Seven Steps to Earthquake Safety (in Spanish and English)

This book is provided here to share an important message on emergency preparedness. Historically, we have suffered earthquakes here in the San Francisco Bay Area that have caused severe hardship for residents and incredible damage to our cities. It is likely we will experience a severe earthquake within the next 30 years. Many of us come from other countries where we have experienced earth- qu
Authors
, , , , , ,