Publications

The structured expert elicitation process proposed by Cooke (1991), hereafter referred to as Cooke’s approach, is applied for the first time in the realm of structural collapse-fragility assessment for selected generic construction types. Cooke’s approach works on the principle of objective calibration scoring of judgments coupled with hypothesis testing used in classical statistics. The

We evaluate a new depth-averaged mathematical model that is designed to simulate all stages of debris-flow motion, from initiation to deposition. A companion paper shows how the model’s five governing equations describe simultaneous evolution of flow thickness, solid volume fraction, basal pore-fluid pressure, and two components of flow momentum. Each equation contains a source term that

Aseismic or slow slip events have been observed in many subduction zones, but whether they affect the occurrence of earthquakes or result from stress changes caused by nearby events is unclear. In an area lacking direct geodetic observations, inferences can be made from seismological studies of co-seismic slip, associated stress changes and the spatiotemporal nature of aftershocks. These

The complex tectonics surrounding the Philippine Islands are dominated by the interactions of the Pacific, Sunda, and Eurasia plates with the Philippine Sea plate (PSP). The latter is unique because it is almost exclusively surrounded by zones of plate convergence. At its eastern and southeastern edges, the Pacific plate is subducted beneath the PSP at the Izu-Bonin, Mariana, and Yap...

Geophysical measurements are often acquired at scattered locations in space. Therefore, interpolating or fitting the sparsely sampled data as a uniform function of space (a procedure commonly known as gridding) is a ubiquitous problem in geophysics. Most gridding methods require a model of spatial correlation for data. This spatial correlation model can often be inferred from some sort...

Accurate estimates of soil hydraulic parameters representing wetting and drying paths are required for predicting hydraulic and mechanical responses in a large number of applications. A comprehensive suite of laboratory experiments was conducted to measure hysteretic soil-water characteristic curves (SWCCs) representing a wide range of soil types. Results were used to quantitatively...

Many seismological studies depend on the published orientations of sensitive axes of seismic instruments relative to north (e.g., Li et al., 2011). For example, studies of the anisotropic structure of the Earth’s mantle through SKS‐splitting measurements (Long et al., 2009), constraints on core–mantle electromagnetic coupling from torsional normal‐mode measurements (Dumberry and Mound...

After the 2010 Mw 8.8 Maule earthquake, an international collaboration involving teams and instruments from Chile, the US, the UK, France and Germany established the International Maule Aftershock Deployment temporary network over the source region of the event to facilitate detailed, open-access studies of the aftershock sequence. Using data from the first 9-months of this deployment...

The Mw 5.8 earthquake of 23 August 2011 (17:51:04 UTC) (moment, M0 5.7×1017  N·m) occurred near Mineral, Virginia, within the central Virginia seismic zone and was felt by more people than any other earthquake in United States history. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) received 148,638 felt reports from 31 states and 4 Canadian provinces. The USGS PAGER system estimates as many as 120...

A preliminary hazard assessment was developed for debris-flow hazards in the 465 square-kilometer (115,000 acres) area burned by the 2013 Beaver Creek fire near Hailey in central Idaho. The burn area covers all or part of six watersheds and selected basins draining to the Big Wood River and is at risk of substantial post-fire erosion, such as that caused by debris flows. Empirical models...

We independently invert teleseismic P waveforms and regional crustal phases to examine the finite fault slip model for the 2011 Mw 5.8 Mineral, Virginia, earthquake. Theoretical and empirical Green's functions are used for the teleseismic and regional models, respectively. Both solutions show two distinct sources each about 2 km across and separated by 2.5 km. The source at the...

Ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) for elastic response spectra are typically developed at a 5% viscous damping ratio. In reality, however, structural and nonstructural systems can have other damping ratios. This paper develops a new model for a damping scaling factor (DSF) that can be used to adjust the 5% damped spectral ordinates predicted by a GMPE for damping ratios between...