Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Geologic Hazards Science Center

The Geologic Hazards Science Center (GHSC), on the Colorado School of Mines campus, is home to the National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC), many scientists in the Earthquake Hazards Program and Landslide Hazards Program, as well as the Geomagnetism Program staff.

News

link

Post-fire Hydrologic Response Along the Central California Coast

link

New USGS-FEMA study highlights economic earthquake risk in the United States

link

Volcanic explosion penetrates both upper atmosphere and upper crust around the globe

Publications

Runout model evaluation based on back-calculation of building damage

We evaluated the ability of three debris-flow runout models (RAMMS, FLO2D and D-Claw) to predict the number of damaged buildings in simulations of the 9 January 2019 Montecito, California, debris-flow event. Observations of building damage after the event were combined with OpenStreetMap building footprints to construct a database of all potentially impacted buildings. At the estimated event volum
Authors
Katherine R. Barnhart, Jason W. Kean

Forecasting the inundation of postfire debris flows

In the semi-arid regions of the western United States, postfire debris flows are typically runoff generated. The U.S. Geological Survey has been studying the mechanisms of postfire debris-flow initiation for multiple decades to generate operational models for forecasting the timing, location, and magnitude of postfire debris flows. Here we discuss challenges and progress for extending operational
Authors
Katherine R. Barnhart, Ryan P Jones, David L. George, Francis K. Rengers, Jason W. Kean

DisasterNet: Causal Bayesian networks with normalizing flows for cascading hazards

Sudden-onset hazards like earthquakes often induce cascading secondary hazards (e.g., landslides, liquefaction, debris flows, etc.) and subsequent impacts (e.g., building and infrastructure damage) that cause catastrophic human and economic losses. Rapid and accurate estimates of these hazards and impacts are critical for timely and effective post-disaster responses. Emerging remote sensing techni
Authors
Xuechun Li, Paula Madeline Burgi, Wei Ma, Haeyoung Noh, David J. Wald, Susu Xu