Publications

Earthquakes caused by human activities have been observed for decades. Often these are related to industrial activities pumping fluids into deep geologic formations, like with wastewater disposal. The simplest theory connecting these processes to earthquakes is straightforward: injection leads to fluid pressure changes that either reduce the strength of preexisting faults or generate new...

Surface debris covers much of the western portion of the McMurdo Ice Shelf and has a strong influence on the local surface albedo and energy balance. Differential ablation between debris-covered and debris-free areas creates an unusual heterogeneous surface of topographically low, high-ablation, and topographically raised (‘pedestalled’), low-ablation areas. Analysis of Landsat and MODIS...

To reduce future earthquake injuries and casualties, it is important that people understand how their behavior, during and immediately following earthquake shaking, exposes them to increased risk of injury or death. Research confirms that protective actions can reduce injuries and that prior training can help prepare people to take appropriate actions. In this paper, we examine barriers...

The evolution of seismic structural-health monitoring (S2HM) of buildings in the USA is described in this chapter, emphasizing real-time monitoring. Rapid and accurate assessment of post-earthquake building damage is of paramount importance to stakeholders (including owners, occupants, city officials, and rescue teams). Relying merely on rapid visual inspection could result in serious...

Sea level rise and uncertainty in its projections pose a major challenge to flood risk management and adaptation investments in coastal mega cities. This study presents a comparative economic evaluation method for flood adaptation measures, which couples a cost–benefit analysis with the concept of adaptation pathways. Our approach accounts for uncertainty in sea level rise projections by...

Wildfire has been a constant presence on the Earth since at least the Silurian period, and is a landscape-scale catalyst that results in a step-change perturbation for hydrologic systems, which ripples across burned terrain, shaping the geomorphic legacy of watersheds. Specifically, wildfire alters two key landscape properties: (1) overland flow, and (2) soil erodibility. Overland flow...

Mammoth Mountain, California, has exhibited unrest over the past ~30 years, characterized by seismicity over a broad range of depths, elevated 3He/4He ratios in fumarolic gas, and large-scale diffuse CO2 emissions. This activity has been attributed to magmatic intrusion, but minimal ground deformation and the presence of a shallow crustal gas reservoir beneath Mammoth Mountain pose a...

The 2 September 2017 M 5.3 Sulphur Peak, Idaho, earthquake is one of the largest earthquakes in southern Idaho since the 1983 M 6.9 Borah Peak earthquake. It was followed by a vigorous aftershock sequence for nearly two weeks that included five events above M 4.5. The coseismic and early postseismic deformation was measured with both Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar and Global...

Tidal wetland fluxes of particulate organic matter and carbon (POM, POC) are important terms in global budgets but remain poorly constrained. Given the link between sediment fluxes and wetland stability, POM and POC fluxes should also be related to stability. We measured POM and POC fluxes in eight microtidal salt marsh channels, with net POM fluxes ranging between −121 ± 33 (export) and...

We mapped a poorly documented 35-km-long section of the northern San Andreas fault zone (NSAF) between Tomales Point and Fort Ross, California. Mapping is largely based on high-resolution seismic-reflection profiles (38 fault crossings), multibeam bathymetry, and onshore geology. NSAF strike in this section is nearly parallel to plate motion, characterized by a slight (~2°) northerly

The traditional flow of coastal ocean model data is from High Performance Computing (HPC) centers to the local desktop, or to a file server where just the data needed can be extracted via services such as OPeNDAP. Analysis and visualization is then conducted using local hardware and software. This requires moving large amounts of data across the internet as well as acquiring and...

Offshore permafrost plays a role in the global climate system, but observations of permafrost thickness, state, and composition are limited to specific regions. The current global permafrost map shows potential offshore permafrost distribution based on bathymetry and global sea level rise. As a first‐order estimate, we employ a heat transfer model to calculate the subsurface temperature...