Publications

Bathymetry and magnetic anomalies indicate that a seamount on the Juan de Fuca plate has been subducted beneath the central Cascadia accretionary complex and is now located ∼45 km landward of the deformation front. Passage of this seamount through the accretionary complex has resulted in a pattern of uplift followed by subsidence that has had a profound influence on slope morphology, gas...

The Franciscan Complex is a classic subduction-zone assemblage. In northwest California, it comprises a stack of west vergent thrust sheets: westernmost Eastern Belt outliers; Central Belt mélange; Coastal Belt Yager terrane; Coastal Belt Coastal terrane; Coastal Belt King Range/False Cape terranes. We collected samples and determined P-T conditions of recrystallization for 88 medium...

A portable truck-mounted C-band Doppler weather radar was deployed to observe rainfall over the Station Fire burn area near Los Angeles, California, during the winter of 2009/10 to assist with debris-flow warning decisions. The deployments were a component of a joint NOAA–U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) research effort to improve definition of the rainfall conditions that trigger debris...

The Third USGS Modeling Conference was held June 7th-11, 2010, in Broomfield, Colorado. The conference focused on the development and application of analytical and theoretical models and data availability that support managing the Nation's resources and help protect lives and property. Participants at the conference included scientists and managers from Department of the Interior (DOI)...

Volcanism is a major contributor to the formation of important uranium deposits both close to centers of eruption and more distal as a result of deposition of ash with leachable uranium. Hydrothermal fluids that are driven by magmatic heat proximal to some volcanic centers directly form some deposits. These fluids leach uranium from U-bearing silicic volcanic rocks and concentrate it at...

Cobalt is a shiny, gray, brittle metal that is best known for creating an intense blue color in glass and paints. It is frequently used in the manufacture of rechargeable batteries and to create alloys that maintain their strength at high temperatures. It is also one of the essential trace elements (or "micronutrients") that humans and many other living creatures require for good health...

Weathered felsite is associated with the late Campanian–Maastrichtian Pigeon Point Formation near Pescadero, California. Poorly exposed, its age and correlation are uncertain. Is it part of the Pigeon Point section west of the San Gregorio–Hosgri fault? Does it rest on Nacimiento block basement? Is it dextrally offset from the Oligocene Cambria Felsite, ∼185 km to the southeast? Why is a...

To investigate rainfall-runoff conditions that generate post-wildfire debris flows, we instrumented and surveyed steep, small watersheds along the tectonically active front of the San Gabriel Mountains, California. Fortuitously, we recorded runoff-generated debris-flows triggered by one spatially restricted convective event with 28 mm of rainfall falling over 62 minutes. Our rain gages...

Recent advances in downscaling climate model precipitation predictions now yield spatially explicit patterns of rainfall that could be used to estimate shallow landslide susceptibility over large areas. In California, the United States Geological Survey is exploring community emergency response to the possible effects of a very large simulated storm event and to do so it has generated...

No abstract available.

This field trip examines contrasting lines of evidence bearing on the timing and structural style of Cenozoic (and perhaps late Mesozoic) extensional deformation in northeastern Nevada. Studies of metamorphic core complexes in this region report extension beginning in the early Cenozoic or even Late Cretaceous, peaking in the Eocene and Oligocene, and being largely over before the onset...

Ground magnetic data contain information, not pre-sent in aeromagnetic data, which may be useful for precisely mapping near-surface faults and contacts, as well as constraining or aiding interpretation of other geophysical methods. However, collecting ground magnetic data on foot is labor-intensive and is therefore limited to small surveys. In this article, we present two newly developed...