Mission Areas
Natural Hazards
Every year in the United States, natural hazards threaten lives and livelihoods and result in billions of dollars in damage. We work with many partners to monitor, assess, and conduct targeted research on a wide range of natural hazards so that policymakers and the public have the understanding they need to enhance preparedness, response, and resilience.
Reducing Risk
USGS scientists develop new products to make science available to the public, emergency managers, and decision-makers. These efforts increase public safety and reduce risk and economic losses caused by natural hazards.
Learn MoreHazard Research
USGS scientists conduct research to understand earth processes and the natural hazards they can pose to society in order to increase public safety and reduce risk and economic loss.
Explore our ProgramsNews
All Systems Go for First Statewide Testing of ShakeAlert in the United States
Today, the U.S. Geological Survey and the State of California pressed the “go” button to allow the first-ever statewide public testing of the California Early Earthquake Warning System, which is powered by USGS’s earthquake early warning alerts, called ShakeAlerts.
What if the ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning System Had Been Operating During the M6.9 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake?
How will ShakeAlert® likely perform now on a large earthquake impacting a major urban area? How much warning will you get? To answer this, let’s do a thought experiment...
Read the new Science for Everyone article at What if the ShakeAlert Earthquake Early Warning System...
The 2019 Great ShakeOut
When the ground starts to shake, what do you do? Great ShakeOut 2019: Drop, Cover, and Hold On!
Publications
The HayWired earthquake scenario—Societal consequences
The HayWired earthquake scenario—Societal consequences is the third volume of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Scientific Investigations Report 2017–5013, which describes the HayWired scenario, developed by USGS and its partners. The scenario is a hypothetical yet scientifically realistic earthquake sequence that is being used to better understand...
Detweiler, Shane T.; Wein, Anne M.; Jones, Jamie; Wein, Anne M.; Schweikert, Amy; Ballanti, Laurel
Stormquakes
Seismic signals from ocean-solid Earth interactions are ubiquitously recorded on our planet. However, these wavefields are typically incoherent in most frequency bands limiting their utilization for understanding ocean dynamics or solid Earth properties. In contrast, we find that during large storms such as hurricanes and Nor’easters the...
Fan, Wenyuan; McGuire, Jeffrey; de Groot-Hedlin, C. D.; Hedlin, M. A. H.; Coats, S.; Fiedler, J. W.
Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center—2018 annual report
The 2018 annual report of the U.S. Geological Survey Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center summarizes the work of the center, as well as the work of each of its science groups, highlights accomplishments of 2018, and includes a list of publications published in 2018. This product allows readers to gain a general understanding of the focus...
Ernst, Sara