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Publications

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The influence of anthropogenic regulation and evaporite dissolution on earthquake-triggered ground failure

Remote sensing observations of Searles Lake following the 2019 moment magnitude 7.1 Ridgecrest, California, earthquake reveal an area where surface ejecta is arranged in a repeating hexagonal pattern that is collocated with a solution-mining operation. By analyzing geologic and geotechnical data, here we show that the hexagonal surface ejecta is likely not a result of liquefaction. Instead, we pro
Authors
Paula Madeline Burgi, Eric M. Thompson, Kate E. Allstadt, Kyle Dennis Murray, Henry (Ben) Mason, Sean Kamran Ahdi, Devin Katzenstein

Background seismic noise levels among the Caribbean network and the role of station proximity to coastline

The amplitude and frequency content of background seismic noise is highly variable with geographic location. Understanding the characteristics and behavior of background seismic noise as a function of location can inform approaches to improve network performance and in turn increase earthquake detection capabilities. Here, we calculate power spectral density estimates in one‐hour windows for over
Authors
Justin T. Wilgus, Adam T. Ringler, Brandon Schmandt, David C. Wilson, Robert E. Anthony

Modeling protective action decision-making in earthquakes by using explainable machine learning and video data

Earthquakes pose substantial threats to communities worldwide. Understanding how people respond to the fast-changing environment during earthquakes is crucial for reducing risks and saving lives. This study aims to study people’s protective action decision-making in earthquakes by leveraging explainable machine learning and video data. Specifically, this study first collected real-world CCTV foota
Authors
Xiaojian Zhang, Xilei Zhao, Dare Baldwin, Sara McBride, Josephine Bellizzi, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Nicolas Luco, Matthew Wood, Thomas J. Cova

Liquefaction timing and post-triggering seismic energy: A comparison of crustal and subduction zone earthquakes

The objective of the study is to assess when liquefaction is triggered in a suite of ground motions following simplified approaches and measure the remaining post-triggering energy content of those ground motions. For liquefaction-induced deformations, current simplified analysis procedures do not directly incorporate temporal effects and rely on peak transient intensity measurements. Liquefaction
Authors
Trevor J. Carey, Atira Naik, Andrew James Makdisi, Henry (Ben) Mason

Stress-driven recurrence and precursory moment-rate surge in caldera collapse earthquakes

Predicting the recurrence times of earthquakes and understanding the physical processes that immediately precede them are two outstanding problems in seismology. Although geodetic measurements record elastic strain accumulation, most faults have recurrence intervals longer than available measurements. Foreshocks provide the principal observations of processes before mainshocks, but variability bet
Authors
Paul Segall, Mark V. Matthews, David R. Shelly, Taiyi Wang, Kyle R. Anderson

Earthquake rupture forecast model construction for the 2023 U.S. 50‐State National Seismic Hazard Model Update: Central and eastern U.S. fault‐based source model

As part of the U.S. Geological Survey’s 2023 50‐State National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM), we make modest revisions and additions to the central and eastern U.S. (CEUS) fault‐based seismic source model that result in locally substantial hazard changes. The CEUS fault‐based source model was last updated as part of the 2014 NSHM and considered new information from the Seismic Source Characterizatio
Authors
Allison Shumway, Mark D. Petersen, Gabriel Toro, Peter M. Powers, Jason M. Altekruse, Julie A Herrick, Kenneth S. Rukstales, Jessica Ann Thompson Jobe, Alexandra Elise Hatem, Demi Leafar Girot

Satellite Interferometry Landslide Detection and Preliminary Tsunamigenic Plausibility Assessment in Prince William Sound, Southcentral Alaska

Regional mapping of actively deforming landslides, including measurements of landslide velocity, is integral for hazard assessments in paraglacial environments. These inventories are also critical for describing the potential impacts that the warming effects of climate change have on slope instability in mountainous and cryospheric terrain. The objective of this study is to identify slow-moving la

Authors
Lauren N. Schaefer, Jinwook Kim, Dennis M. Staley, Zhong Lu, Katherine R. Barnhart

Hybrid CPU-GPU solution to regularized divergence-free curl-curl equations for electromagnetic inversion problems

The Curl-Curl equation is the foundation of time-harmonic electromagnetic (EM) problems in geophysics. The efficiency of its solution is key to EM simulations, accounting for over 95% of the computation cost in geophysical inversions for magnetotelluric or controlled-source EM problems. However, most published EM inversion codes are still central processing unit (CPU)-based and cannot utilize rece
Authors
Hao Dong, Kai Sun, Gary D. Egbert, Anna Kelbert, Naser Meqbel

Developing and implementing an International Macroseismic Scale (IMS) for earthquake engineering, earthquake science, and rapid damage assessment

Executive SummaryMacroseismic observations and analysis connect our collective seismological past with the present and the present to the future by facilitating hazard estimates and communicating the effects of ground shaking to a wide variety of audiences across the ages. Invaluable ground shaking and building damage information is gained through standardized, systematic approaches for assigning
Authors
David J. Wald, Tatiana Goded, Ayse Hortascu, Sabine Chandradewi Loos

Slope Unit Maker (SUMak): An efficient and parameter-free algorithm for delineating slope units to improve landslide modeling

Slope units are terrain partitions bounded by drainage and divide lines. In landslide modeling, including susceptibility modeling and event-specific modeling of landslide occurrence, slope units provide several advantages over gridded units, such as better capturing terrain geometry, improved incorporation of geospatial landslide-occurrence data in different formats (e.g., point and polygon), and
Authors
Jacob Bryson Woodard, Benjamin B. Mirus, Nathan J. Wood, Kate E. Allstadt, Ben Leshchinsky, Matthew Crawford

Rapid estimation of single-station earthquake magnitudes with machine learning on a global scale

The foundation of earthquake monitoring is the ability to rapidly detect, locate, and estimate the size of seismic sources. Earthquake magnitudes are particularly difficult to rapidly characterize because magnitude types are only applicable to specific magnitude ranges, and location errors propagate to substantial magnitude errors. We developed a method for rapid estimation of single‐station earth
Authors
Sydney Dybing, William L. Yeck, Hank M. Cole, Diego Melgar

Recent applications of the USGS National Crustal Model for Seismic Hazard Studies

The U.S. Geological Survey is developing the National Crustal Model (NCM) for seismic hazard studies to facilitate modeling site, path, and source components of seismic hazard across the conterminous United States. The NCM is composed of a 1km grid of geophysical profiles, extending from the Earth’s surface into the upper mantle. It is constructed from a threedimensional (3D) geologic framework an
Authors
Oliver S. Boyd, James Andrew Smith, Morgan P. Moschetti, Brad T. Aagaard, Robert Graves, Evan Tyler Hirakawa, Sean Kamran Ahdi
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