Publications

We describe a technique to estimate the seismic moment of acoustic emissions and other extremely small seismic events. Unlike previous calibration techniques, it does not require modeling of the wave propagation, sensor response, or signal conditioning. Rather, this technique calibrates the recording system as a whole and uses a ball impact as a reference source or empirical Green’s...

In November 2013, a series of earthquakes began along a mapped ancient fault system near Azle, Texas. Here we assess whether it is plausible that human activity caused these earthquakes. Analysis of both lake and groundwater variations near Azle shows that no significant stress changes were associated with the shallow water table before or during the earthquake sequence. In contrast...

The ubiquity of tectonic features formed in extension, and the apparent absence of ones formed in contraction, has led to the hypothesis that Ganymede has undergone global expansion in its past. Determining the magnitude of such expansion is challenging however, and extrapolation of locally or regionally inferred strains to global scales often results in strain estimates that exceed...

No one questions that Los Angeles has an earthquake problem. The “Big Bend” of the San Andreas fault in southern California complicates the plate boundary between the North American and Pacific plates, creating a convergent component to the primarily transform boundary. The Southern California Earthquake Center Community Fault Model has over 150 fault segments, each capable of generating...

The authors, to their knowledge for the first time, produced two complete principal soil water retention curves (SWRCs) under both positive and negative matric suction regimes. An innovative testing technique combining the transient water release and imbibition method (TRIM) and constant flow method (CFM) was used to identify the principal paths of SWRC in the positive pore-water...

This paper will constrain the possible sources and processes for the formation of recently observed H2O vapor plumes above the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres. Two hypotheses have been proposed: (1) cryovolcanism where the water source is the mantle and the heating source is still unknown or (2) comet-like sublimation where near-surface water ice is vaporized by seasonally increasing...

The ongoing, dramatic increase in seismicity in the central United States that began in 2009 is believed to be the result of injection‐induced seismicity (Ellsworth, 2013). Although the basic mechanism for activation of slip on a fault by subsurface fluid injection is well established (Healy et al., 1968; Raleighet al., 1976; Nicholson and Wesson, 1992; McGarr et al., 2002; Ellsworth...

On March 19, 2008 a small explosive event accompanied the opening of a 35-m-wide vent (Overlook vent) on the southeast wall of Halema‘uma‘u Crater in Kīlauea Caldera, initiating an eruptive period that extends to the time of writing. The peak of activity, in 2008, consisted of alternating background open-system outgassing and spattering punctuated by sudden, short-lived weak explosions...

We derive time-dependent, renewal-model earthquake probabilities for the case in which the date of the last event is completely unknown, and compare these with the time-independent Poisson probabilities that are customarily used as an approximation in this situation. For typical parameter values, the renewal-model probabilities exceed Poisson results by more than 10% when the forecast...

A methodology is presented for computing elastic‐rebound‐based probabilities in an unsegmented fault or fault system, which involves computing along‐fault averages of renewal‐model parameters. The approach is less biased and more self‐consistent than a logical extension of that applied most recently for multisegment ruptures in California. It also enables the application of magnitude...

Building a new model, especially one used for policy purposes, takes considerable time, effort, and resources. In justifying such expenditures, one inevitably spends a lot of time denigrating previous models. For example, in pitching the third Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast (UCERF3) (http://www.WGCEP.org/UCERF3), criticisms of the previous model included fault...

The Mw6.1 South Napa earthquake occurred near Napa, California on August 24, 2014 (UTC), and was the largest inland earthquake in Northern California since the 1989 Mw6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake. The first report of the earthquake from the Northern California Earthquake Data Center (NCEDC) indicates a hypocentral depth of 11.0km with longitude and latitude of (122.3105°W, 38.217°N)...