Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Publications

Filter Total Items: 2148

Porosity, strength, and alteration – Towards a new volcano stability assessment tool using VNIR-SWIR reflectance spectroscopy

Volcano slope stability analysis is a critical component of volcanic hazard assessments and monitoring. However, traditional methods for assessing rock strength require physical samples of rock which may be difficult to obtain or characterize in bulk. Here, visible to shortwave infrared (350–2500 nm; VNIR–SWIR) reflected light spectroscopy on laboratory-tested rock samples from Ruapehu, Ohakuri, W
Authors
Gabor Kereszturi, Michael J. Heap, Lauren N. Schaefer, Herlan Darmawan, Frances M. Deegan, Ben M. Kennedy, Jean-Christophe Komorowski, Stuart Mead, Marina Rosas-Carbajal, Amy Ryan, Valentin R. Troll, Marlène C. Villeneuve, Thomas R. Walter

High‐precision characterization of seismicity from the 2022 Hunga Tonga‐Hunga Ha'apai volcanic eruption

The earthquake swarm accompanying the January 2022 Hunga Tonga‐Hunga Ha'apai (HTHH) volcanic eruption includes a large number of posteruptive moderate‐magnitude seismic events and presents a unique opportunity to use remote monitoring methods to characterize and compare seismic activity with other historical caldera‐forming eruptions. We compute improved epicentroid locations, magnitudes, and regi
Authors
Jonas A. Kintner, William L. Yeck, Paul S. Earle, Stephanie Prejean, Jeremy Pesicek

Preliminary national-scale seismic risk assessment of natural gas pipelines in the United States

Although the gas pipeline infrastructure in the United States is vulnerable to the seismic hazards of (i) strong ground shaking, and (ii) ground failures induced by surface faulting, liquefaction, or landslides, limited national guidance exists for operators to consistently evaluate the earthquake response of their pipelines. To provide additional information for stakeholders and establish more co
Authors
N. Simon Kwong, Kishor Jaiswal, Nicolas Luco, J. W. Baker, K. A. Ludwig

Assessing direct and indirect long-term economic impacts from earthquakes to the U.S. National Bridge Inventory

Using the 2018 National Seismic Hazard Model and the 2018 National Bridge Inventory, an annualized earthquake loss (AEL) study was conducted for approximately 610,000 bridges in the conterminous United States, quantifying both direct and indirect economic losses. The typical AEL framework has been augmented with new replacement unit cost data and bridge-specific parameters for modifying default fr
Authors
Kishor Jaiswal, N. Simon Kwong, Doug Bausch, David J. Wald, Kuo-wan Lin, Sharon Yen, Jerry Shen, Jeffrey Ger

Climatic influence on the expression of strike-slip faulting

Earthquakes on strike-slip faults are preserved in the geomorphic record by offset landforms that span a range of displacements, from small offsets created in the most recent earthquake (MRE) to large offsets that record cumulative slip from multiple prior events. An exponential decay in the number of large cumulative offsets has been observed on many faults, and a leading hypothesis is that clima
Authors
Nadine G. Reitman, Yann Klinger, Richard W. Briggs, Ryan D. Gold

Rock alteration mapping in and around fossil shallow intrusions at Mt. Ruapehu New Zealand with laboratory and aerial hyperspectral imaging

Diagnostic absorption features in hyperspectral data can be used to identify a specific mineral or mineral associations. However, it is unknown how accurate hyperspectral mapping can be for identifying alteration mineral compositions at the resolution required to describe structures such as fossil intrusions, or whether it can accurately quantify the alteration present. This study compared petrogr
Authors
Abbey Douglas, Gabor Kereszturi, Lauren N. Schaefer, Ben M. Kennedy

Modeling geomagnetic induction in submarine cables

Submarine cables have become a vital component of modern infrastructure, but past submarine cable natural hazard studies have mostly focused on potential cable damage from landslides and tsunamis. A handful of studies examine the possibility of space weather effects in submarine cables. The main purpose of this study is to develop a computational model, using Python, of geomagnetic induction on su
Authors
Shibaji Chakraborty, David H. Boteler, Xueling Shi, Benjamin Scott Murphy, Michael D. Hartinger, Xuan Wang, Greg M. Lucas, Joseph B. H. Baker

A global catalog of calibrated earthquake locations

We produced a globally distributed catalog of earthquakes and nuclear explosions with calibrated hypocenters, referred to as the Global Catalog of Calibrated Earthquake Locations (GCCEL). This dataset currently contains 18,782 events in 289 clusters with >3.2 million arrival times observed at 19,258 stations. The term “calibrated” refers to the property that the hypocenters are minimally biased by
Authors
Eric A. Bergman, Harley M. Benz, William L. Yeck, Ezgi Karasözen, E. Robert Engdahl, Abdolreza Ghods, Gavin P. Hayes, Paul S. Earle

Off-fault deformation in regions of complex fault geometries: the 2013, Mw7.7, Baluchistan rupture (Pakistan)

Observations of recent earthquake surface ruptures show that ground deformations include a localized component occurring on faults, and an off-fault component affecting the surrounding medium. This second component is also referred to as off-fault deformation (OFD). The localized component generally occurs on complex networks of faults that connect at depth onto a unique fault plane, whereas OFD c
Authors
Solene Antoine, Yann Klinger, Arthur Delorme, Ryan D. Gold

Postfire debris flow hazards—Tips to keep you safe

Often referred to as “mudflows,” debris flows are a type of landslide made up of a rapidly moving mixture of dirt, rocks, trees, and water (and sometimes ash) that start on a hillside and travel downvalley. They can easily overflow channels and severely damage houses, vehicles, or other structures. Areas burned by wildfires are especially susceptible to these hazards, which can be triggered by sto
Authors
Steven Sobieszczyk, Jason W. Kean

Lower seismogenic depth model of western U.S. Earthquakes

We present a model of the lower seismogenic depth of earthquakes in the western United States (WUS) estimated using the hypocentral depths of events M > 1, a crustal temperature model, and historical earthquake rupture depth models. Locations of earthquakes are from the Advanced National Seismic System Comprehensive Earthquake Catalog from 1980 to 2021 supplemented with seismicity in southern Cali
Authors
Yuehua Zeng, Mark D. Petersen, Oliver S. Boyd