Natural Hazards
Publications
The role of seismic and slow slip events in triggering the 2018 M7.1 Anchorage earthquake in the Southcentral Alaska subduction zone
The M 7.1 2018 Anchorage earthquake occurred in the bending part of the subducting North Pacific plate near the geometrical barrier formed by the underthrusting Yakutat terrane. We calculate the triggering potential related with stress redistribution from deformation sources including the M 9.2 1964 earthquake coseismic slip,...
Segou, Margarita; Parsons, Thomas E. Airborne lidar and electro-optical imagery along surface ruptures of the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence, Southern California
Surface rupture from the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence, initially associated with the M 6.4 foreshock, occurred on July 4 on a ~17 km long, northeast-southwest oriented, left-lateral zone of faulting. Following the M 7.1 mainshock on July 5 (local time), extensive northwest-southeast-oriented, right-lateral faulting was then also mapped...
Brooks, Benjamin A.; Scharer, Katherine; Hernandez, Janis; Dawson, Timothy E.; Oskin, Mike; Arrowsmith, Ramon; Goulet, Christine A.; Blake, Kelly; Boggs, Matt; Bork, Stephan; Glennie, Craig; Fernandez-Diaz, J.C.; Singhania, Abhinav; Hauser, Darren L.; Sorhus, Sven; Hudnut, Kenneth W.; Brooks, Benjamin A.; Scharer, Katherine M.; Hernandez, Janis L.; Dawson, Timothy E.; Oskin, Michael E.; Arrowsmith, J. Ramon; Goulet, Christine A.; Blake, Kelly; Boggie, Matthew A.; Bork, Stephan; Craig L. Glennie; Fernandez-Diaz, J.C.; Singhania, Abhinav; Hauser, Darren; Sorhus, Sven Subduction megathrust heterogeneity characterized from 3D seismic data
Megathrust roughness and structural complexity are thought to be controls on earthquake slip at subduction zones because they result in heterogeneity in shear strength and resolved stress. However, because active megathrust faults are difficult to observe, the causes and scales of complexity are largely unknown. Here we measured the in situ...
Kirkpatrick, James D.; Edwards, Joel H.; Verdecchia, Alessandro; Kluesner, Jared; Harrington, Rebecca M.; Silver, Eli
Science plan for improving three-dimensional seismic velocity models in the San Francisco Bay region, 2019–24
This five-year science plan outlines short-term and long-term goals for improving three-dimensional seismic velocity models in the greater San Francisco Bay region as well as how to foster a community effort in reaching those goals. The short-term goals focus on improving the current U.S. Geological Survey San Francisco Bay region geologic and...
Aagaard, Brad T.; Graymer, Russell W.; Thurber, Clifford H.; Rodgers, Arthur J.; Taira, Taka'aki; Catchings, Rufus D.; Goulet, Christine A.; Plesch, Andreas Disk-integrated thermal properties of Ceres measured at the millimeter wavelengths
We observed Ceres at three epochs in 2015 November and 2017 September and October with Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) 12 m array and in 2017 October with the ALMA Compact Array (ACA), all at ~265 GHz continuum (wavelengths of ~1.1 mm) to map the temperatures of Ceres over a full rotation at each epoch. We also used 2017...
Li, Jian-Yang; Moullet, Arielle; Titus, Timothy N.; Hsieh, Henry H.; Sykes, Mark V. Practical limitations of Earthquake Early Warning
Earthquake Early Earning (EEW) entails detection of initial earthquake shaking and rapid estimation and notification to users prior to imminent, stronger shaking. EEW is coming to the U.S. West Coast. But what are the technical and social challenges to delivering actionable information on earthquake shaking before it arrives? Although there will...
Wald, David J. USGS “Did You Feel It?” — Science and lessons from twenty years of citizen science-based macroseismology
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) “Did You Feel It?” (DYFI) system is an automatic method for rapidly collecting macroseismic intensity data from Internet users’ shaking and damage reports and for generating intensity maps immediately following felt earthquakes. DYFI has been in operation for nearly two decades (1999-2019) in the United States,...
Quitoriano, Vince; Wald, David J. Seismic and geodetic progression of the 2018 summit caldera collapse of Kīlauea Volcano
The 2018 eruption of Kīlauea volcano, Hawaiʻi, resulted in a major collapse of the summit caldera along with an effusive eruption in the lower East Rift Zone. The caldera collapse comprised 62 highly similar collapse cycles of strong ground deformation and earthquake swarms that ended with a magnitude 5 collapse event and one partial cycle that...
Tepp, Gabrielle; Hotovec-Ellis, Alicia J.; Shiro, Brian; Johanson, Ingrid; Thelen, Weston; Haney, Matthew M.
Ground-motion predictions for California-Comparisons of three prediction equations
We systematically evaluate datasets, functional forms, independent parameters of estimation, and resulting ground-motion predictions (as median and aleatory variability) of the Graizer and Kalkan (2015, 2016) (GK15) ground-motion prediction equation (GMPE) with the next generation of attenuation project (NGA-West2) models of Abrahamson and others...
Kalkan, Erol; Graizer, Vladimir Probabilistic regional-scale liquefaction triggering modeling using 3D Gaussian processes
Liquefaction is a major cause of coseismic damages, occurring irregularly over hundreds or thousands of square kilometers in large earthquakes. Large variations in the extent and location of liquefaction have been observed in recent earthquakes, motivating the need for prediction methods that consider the spatial heterogeneity of geologic deposits...
Greenfield, Michael; Grant, Alex R. R. Mechanics of near-field deformation during co- and post-seismic shallow fault slip
Poor knowledge of how faults slip and distribute deformation in the shallow crust hinders efforts to mitigate hazards where faults increasingly intersect with the expanding global population at Earth’s surface. Here we analyze two study sites along the 2014 M 6.0 South Napa, California, earthquake rupture, each dominated by either co- or post-...
Nevitt, Johanna; Brooks, Benjamin A.; Catchings, Rufus D.; Goldman, Mark; Ericksen, Todd; Glennie, Craig L. Earthquakes, ShakeCast
ShakeCast® – short for ShakeMap Broadcast – is a fully automated software system for delivering specific ShakeMap products to critical users and for triggering established post-earthquake response protocols. ShakeCast is a freely available, postearthquake situational awareness software application that automatically retrieves earthquake shaking...
Lin, Kuo-wan; Wald, David J.; Slosky, Daniel