Publications

A large potential rock avalanche above the northern shore of Tidal Inlet, Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, was investigated to determine hazards and risks of landslide-induced waves to cruise ships and other park visitors. Field and photographic examination revealed that the 5 to 10 million cubic meter landslide moved between AD 1892 and 1919 after the retreat of Little Ice Age...

The February 28, 2001, Nisqually, Washington, earthquake (Mw = 6.8) damaged an area of the northwestern United States that previously experienced two major historical earthquakes, in 1949 and in 1965. Preliminary estimates of direct monetary losses from damage due to earthquake-induced landslides is approximately $34.3 million. However, this figure does not include costs from damages to...

No abstract available.

Paleointensity estimates based on the high quality Thellier‐Thellier data from the early Brunhes (420–780 ka) are rare (only 30 in the published literature). The Second Hawaiian Scientific Drilling Project (HSDP2) drill hole recovered submarine volcanics spanning the approximate time period of 420–550 ka. These are of particular interest for absolute paleointensity studies owing to the...

We describe a model for regional initiation of shallow landslides based on an approximate analytic solution to Richards equation combined with an infinite-slope calculation. The model applied over digital topography computes pressure heads and factors of safety as functions of depth for geographic information system (GIS) grid cells at any time during and after rainfall events. An...

Debris-flow initiation processes on hillslopes recently burned by wildfire differ from those generally recognized on unburned, vegetated hillslopes. These differences result from fire-induced changes in the hydrologic response to rainfall events. In this study, detailed field and aerial photographic mapping, observations, and measurements of debris-flow events from three sites in the...

Measurements of landslide movement made by global positioning system surveys and extensometers over a 3.5-year period show that the Slumgullion landslide in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado moved throughout the monitoring period, but that daily velocities varied on a seasonal basis. Landslide velocities peaked in the early spring and summer in response to snowmelt and summer

These maps present preliminary assessments of the probability of debris-flow activity and estimates of peak discharges that can potentially be generated by debris-flows issuing from basins burned by the Piru, Simi and Verdale Fires of October 2003 in southern California in response to the 25-year, 10-year, and 2-year 1-hour rain storms. The probability maps are based on the application...

The moment magnitude (M) 7.9 Denali Fault earthquake in Alaska of 3 November 2002 triggered an unusual pattern of landslides and liquefaction effects. The landslides were primarily rock falls and rock slides that ranged in volume from a few cubic meters to the 40 million-cubic-meter rock avalanche that covered much of the McGinnis Glacier. Landslides were concentrated in a narrow zone...

Land-use planners have an important role in reducing losses from debris-flow hazards. For that reason, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the American Planning Association (APA) have developed a strategy to make information about landslide and debris-flow hazards available to local planners so that they can incorporate this information into the planning process. A guidebook for...

[1] We investigate the rupture process of the 1999 Chi‐Chi, Taiwan, earthquake using extensive near‐source observations, including three‐component velocity waveforms at 36 strong motion stations and 119 GPS measurements. A three‐plane fault geometry derived from our previous inversion using only static data [Ji et al., 2001] is applied. The slip amplitude, rake angle, rupture initiation...

Ground-motion records from a 52-element dense seismic array near San Jose, California, are analyzed to obtain site response, shallow shear-wave velocity, and plane-wave propagation characteristics. The array, located on the eastern side of the Santa Clara Valley south of the San Francisco Bay, is sited over the Evergreen basin, a 7-km-deep depression with Miocene and younger deposits...