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Look before you build: Geologic studies for safer land development in the San Francisco Bay area Look before you build: Geologic studies for safer land development in the San Francisco Bay area

This Circular provides a general description of the types of geologic hazards that exist throughout the United States. In nontechnical language this book describes how geologic information can be incorporated in the land-use development process and contains useful discussion of several examples from the San Francisco Bay area and elsewhere in the United States of how geologic information...
Authors
Martha Blair-Tyler

Inventory of landslides triggered by the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake Inventory of landslides triggered by the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake

The 17 January 1994 Northridge, California, earthquake (M=6.7) triggered more than 11,000 landslides over an area of about 10,000 km?. Most of the landslides were concentrated in a 1,000-km? area that includes the Santa Susana Mountains and the mountains north of the Santa Clara River valley. We mapped landslides triggered by the earthquake in the field and from 1:60,000-scale aerial...
Authors
Edwin L. Harp, Randall W. Jibson

Geomagnetism applications Geomagnetism applications

The social uses of geomagnetism include the physics of the space environment, satellite damage, pipeline corrosion, electric power-grid failure, communication interference, global positioning disruption, mineral-resource detection, interpretation of the Earth's formation and structure, navigation, weather, and magnetoreception in organisms. The need for continuing observations of the...
Authors
Wallace H. Campbell

Can magma-injection and groundwater forces cause massive landslides on Hawaiian volcanoes? Can magma-injection and groundwater forces cause massive landslides on Hawaiian volcanoes?

Landslides with volumes exceeding 1000 km3 have occurred on the flanks of Hawaiian volcanoes. Because the flanks typically slope seaward no more than 12 °, the mechanics of slope failure are problematic. Limit-equilibrium analyses of wedge-shaped slices of the volcano flanks show that magma injection at prospective headscarps might trigger the landslides, but only under very restrictive...
Authors
R.M. Iverson

Giant blocks in the South Kona landslide, Hawaii Giant blocks in the South Kona landslide, Hawaii

A large field of blocky sea-floor hills, up to 10 km long and 500 m high, are gigantic slide blocks derived from the west flank of Mauna Loa volcano on the island of Hawaii. These megablocks are embedded in the toe of the South Kona landslide, which extends ∼80 km seaward from the present coastline to depths of nearly 5 km. A 10–15-km-wide belt of numerous, smaller, 1–3-km-long slide...
Authors
J.G. Moore, W.B. Bryan, M.H. Beeson, W. R. Normark

Experimental studies of deposition at a debris-flow flume Experimental studies of deposition at a debris-flow flume

Geologists commonly infer the flow conditions and the physical properties of debris flows from the sedimentologic, stratigraphic, and morphologic characteristics of their deposits. However, such inferences commonly lack corroboration by direct observation because the capricious nature of debris flows makes systematic observation and measurement of natural events both difficult and...
Authors
Jon J. Major
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