Publications

The Tecomán, Mexico earthquake (also called the “Colima earthquake”) of January 21, 2003 (M 7.6) triggered several hundreds of landslides in the coastal cordilleras of Colima State, near the earthquake source, and several thousands in the volcanic highlands north and northwest of Colima City. These landslides, mostly shallow and disrupted failures, caused minor damage to roads, to a...

In June of 1997, the U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Coastal Carolina University, conducted a geophysical survey of the shallow geologic framework of the continental shelf offshore of central South Carolina from the Isle of Palms to Bull Island. This report serves as an archive of unprocessed digital boomer seismic reflection data, trackline maps, navigation files, GIS...

Nearly two-dozen shallow landslides were active during spring 2005 on a hillside located along the east side of the Florida River about one kilometer downstream from Lemon Reservoir in La Plata County, southwestern Colorado. Landslides on the hillside directly threaten human safety, residential structures, a county roadway, utilities, and the Florida River, and indirectly threaten...

Four hurricanes battered the state of Florida during 2004, the most affecting any state since Texas endured four in 1884. Each of the storms changed the coast differently. Average shoreline change within the right front quadrant of hurricane force winds varied from 1 m of shoreline advance to 20 m of retreat, whereas average sand volume change varied from 11 to 66 m3 m−1 of net loss...

The initial spacecraft exploration of the Moon in the 1960s–70s yielded extensive data, primarily in the form of film and television images, that were used to produce a large number of hardcopy maps by conventional techniques. A second era of exploration, beginning in the early 1990s, has produced digital data including global multispectral imagery and altimetry, from which a new...

This paper describes our methods for generating high resolution Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) of Venus using Magellan synthetic aperture radar (SAR) stereoimages, and the sensor model we developed for Magellan stereomapping on our digital photogrammetric workstation running SOCET SET (® BAE SYSTEMS). In addition to demonstrating the validity of our sensor model and procedures we use for...

In this study we examined the ability of the NASA Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar (EAARL) to discriminate cluster zones of massive stony coral colonies on northern Florida reef tract (NFRT) patch reefs based on their topographic complexity (rugosity). Spatially dense EAARL laser submarine topographic soundings acquired in August 2002 were used to create a 1-m resolution...

We have established for the first time a size frequency distribution for carbonate submarine slope failures. Using detailed bathymetry along the northern edge of the carbonate platform north of Puerto Rico, we show that the cumulative distribution of slope failure volumes follows a power-law distribution. The power-law exponent of this distribution is similar to those for rock falls on...

The presence of gas hydrate in marine sediments alters their physical properties. In some circumstances, gas hydrate may cement sediment grains together and dramatically increase the seismic P- and S-wave velocities of the composite medium. Hydrate may also form a load-bearing structure within the sediment microstructure, but with different seismic wave attenuation characteristics...

The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has spent more than 2 years exploring Meridiani Planum, traveling ∼8 kilometers and detecting features that reveal ancient environmental conditions. These include well-developed festoon (trough) cross-lamination formed in flowing liquid water, strata with smaller and more abundant hematite-rich concretions than those seen previously, possible relict...

The temporal signature of thermal emission from a volcano is a valuable clue to the processes taking place both at and beneath the surface. The Galileo Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) observed the volcano Prometheus, on the jovian moon Io, on multiple occasions between 1996 and 2002. The 5 micron (μm) brightness of this volcano shows considerable variation from orbit to orbit...

This lidar-derived submarine topography map was produced as a collaborative effort between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coastal and Marine Geology Program, National Park Service (NPS) South Florida/Caribbean Network Inventory and Monitoring Program, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Wallops Flight Facility. One objective of this research is to create...