Publications

The Fairbanks region of central Alaska is part of a broad zone of intraplate crustal deformation, situated north of the Denali fault and north of the ongoing collision and flat‐slab subduction of the Yakutat oceanic plateau. Seismicity in the Fairbanks region occurs both in diffuse areas as well as in well‐defined lineaments, such as the left‐lateral Salcha fault, which hosted the 1937...

Fault-related folds and their associated secondary faults play a critical yet often underrecognized role in accommodating strain and generating earthquakes in active fold-and-thrust belts. In the Seattle fault zone (SFZ), Washington, USA, we present new paleoseismic, geomorphic, and geophysical evidence for late Pleistocene and Holocene earthquakes on shallow, south-dipping secondary...

Visible-to-shortwave infrared (VSWIR) reflectance spectroscopy has revolutionized our understanding of planetary surface compositions. However, space-weathering processes on airless bodies complicate quantitative compositional analyses. Here, we present a framework to isolate the signatures of space weathering in VSWIR spectra of lunar maria by leveraging radiative transfer modeling...

We develop a simple explanation for Gutenberg-Richter (G-R) size scaling of earthquakes on a single fault. We discretize the fault and consider all possible contiguous ruptures at that level of discretization. In this static model, we assume that slip scales with rupture length, and that the rupture rates at each point along the fault are consistent with an a priori long-term slip rate...

Deep beneath the ocean, giant slabs of rock slide beneath one another in areas called subduction zones. These powerful movements shape the planet by building mountains, creating fiery volcanoes, and even causing huge earthquakes. Scientists study subduction zones to understand why these natural events happen and where and how they might occur so we can be better prepared. One important...

On Earth and Mars, aeolian transport causes sand grains to become abraded, resulting in mineralogic and textural changes. Understanding how sands evolve, or mature, with transport via experimental studies is important for understanding the origins, geologic history, and cycling of sediments, as well as dust production. Previous experimental works have used a variety of methods to...

The 29 July 2025 Mw 8.8 Kamchatka, Russia, earthquake was the sixth largest instrumentally recorded earthquake. This event was seismically well observed at regional and teleseismic distances, but publicly available near‐source data were sparse at the time of the event, presenting unique challenges for rapid source and impact characterization. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National...

The rate of earthquakes in a region is a fundamental input to Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis. We present a Monte Carlo method for computing that rate from seismicity catalogs while including a range of data and analysis uncertainties. This method is applied to regions for which the b value is assumed to be spatially invariant. Each region is broken down into epochs for which each...

Mercury hosts widespread smooth plains that are concentrated in the Caloris impact basin, in an annulus surrounding the Caloris basin, and in the adjacent northern smooth plains. The origins of these smooth plains are uncertain, although prior work suggests these plains in the northwestern Caloris annulus might reflect volcanic activity, impact ejecta, or a combination of the two...

The 2011 Mw9.1 Tohoku-oki earthquake is exceptional among great earthquakes for having peak slip of ~50-70 m on the shallowest portion of the plate boundary megathrust. International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 405 drilled multiple holes through the megathrust in the large slip region and at a Pacific Plate input site. The megathrust preferentially develops at the top or base of...

Gridded (or background) seismicity models are a critical component of probabilistic seismic hazard assessments, accounting for off‐fault and smaller‐magnitude earthquakes. They are typically developed by declustering and spatially smoothing an earthquake catalog to estimate a long‐term seismicity rate that can be used to forecast future earthquakes. Here, we present new gridded...

We simulate ground shaking in western Washington State from hypothetical Mw7.0–7.5 earthquakes on the southern Whidbey Island fault (SWIF). Ground motions are modeled considering kinematic source distributions on a complex fault plane, a 3D seismic velocity model, and region‐specific soil velocity models. We run simulations with varying model resolutions, including regional‐scale...