Publications

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Geomagnetism Program has developed and tested the residual method of absolutes, with the assistance of the Danish Technical University's (DTU) Geomagnetism Program. Three years of testing were performed at College Magnetic Observatory (CMO), Fairbanks, Alaska, to compare the residual method with the null method. Results show that the two methods compare...

We conducted a trench investigation and analyzed pre‐ and postearthquake topography to determine the timing and size of prehistoric surface ruptures on the Susitna Glacier fault (SGF), the thrust fault that initiated the 2002 Mw 7.9 Denali fault earthquake sequence in central Alaska. In two of our three hand‐excavated trenches, we found clear evidence for a single pre‐2002 earthquake...

On 7 May 2015, a Mw 4.0 earthquake occurred near Venus, northeast Johnson County, Texas, in an area of the Bend Arch-Fort Worth Basin that reports long-term, high-volume wastewater disposal and that has hosted felt earthquakes since 2009. In the weeks following the Mw 4.0 earthquake, we deployed a local seismic network and purchased nearby active-source seismic reflection data to capture

The seismic response of active and intermittently active landslides is an important issue to resolve to determine if such landslides present an elevated hazard in future earthquakes. To study the response of landslide deposits, seismographs were placed on the Mission Peak landslide in the eastern San Francisco Bay region for a period of one year. Numerous local and near‐regional...

The influence of subduction zone earthquake cycle processes on permanent forearc deformation is poorly understood. In the Cascadia subduction zone forearc of Washington State, USA, deformed and incised fluvial terraces serve as archives of longer-term (103–104 yr) strain manifest as both fluvial incision and slip on upper-plate faults. We focus on comparing these geomorphic records in...

Pulsing - caused either by mechanical or electrical glitches, or by microtilt local to a seismometer - can significantly compromise the long‐period noise performance of broadband seismometers. High‐fidelity long‐period recordings are needed for accurate calculation of quantities such as moment tensors, fault‐slip models, and normal‐mode measurements. Such pulses have long been recognized...

We develop a crustal deformation model to determine fault‐slip rates for the western United States (WUS) using the Zeng and Shen (2014) method that is based on a combined inversion of Global Positioning System (GPS) velocities and geological slip‐rate constraints. The model consists of six blocks with boundaries aligned along major faults in California and the Cascadia subduction zone...

In April 2017, a sequence of earthquakes offshore Valparaíso, Chile, raised concerns of a potential megathrust earthquake in the near future. The largest event in the 2017 sequence was a M6.9 on 24 April, seemingly colocated with the last great-sized earthquake in the region—a M8.0 in March 1985. The history of large earthquakes in this region shows significant variation in rupture size...

Earthquake-induced landslide (EQIL) inventories are essential tools to extend our knowledge of the relationship between earthquakes and the landslides they can trigger. Regrettably, such inventories are difficult to generate and therefore scarce, and the available ones differ in terms of their quality and level of completeness. Moreover, access to existing EQIL inventories is currently...

The Lake Creek–Boundary Creek fault, previously mapped in Miocene bedrock as an oblique thrust on the north flank of the Olympic Mountains, poses a significant earthquake hazard. Mapping using 2015 light detection and ranging (lidar) confirms 2004 lidar mapping of postglacial (≥14  km along a splay fault, the Sadie Creek fault, west of Lake Crescent. Scarp morphology suggests repeated...

Faulted terrace risers are semi-planar features commonly used to constrain Quaternary slip rates along strike-slip faults. These landforms are difficult to date directly and therefore their ages are commonly bracketed by age estimates of the adjacent upper and lower terrace surfaces. However, substantial differences in the ages of the upper and lower terrace surfaces (a factor of 2.4...

The West Hills of Portland, in the southern Tualatin Mountains, trend northwest along the west side of Portland, Oregon. These silt-mantled mountains receive significant wet-season precipitation and are prone to sliding during wet conditions, occasionally resulting in property damage or casualties. In an effort to develop a baseline for interpretive analysis of the groundwater response...