Publications

We present an updated model of the Juan de Fuca slab beneath southern British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and northern California, and use this model to separate earthquakes occurring above and below the slab surface. The model is based on depth contours previously published by Fluck and others (1997). Our model attempts to rectify a number of shortcomings in the original model and...

A coastal vulnerability index (CVI) was used to map the relative vulnerability of the coast to future sea-level rise within Gulf Islands National Seashore (GUIS) in Mississippi and Florida. The CVI ranks the following in terms of their physical contribution to sea-level rise-related coastal change: geomorphology, regional coastal slope, rate of relative sea-level rise, shoreline change...

We perform inverse kinematic and forward dynamic models of the M 7.9 2002 Denali fault, Alaska, earthquake to shed light on the rupture process and dynamics of this event, which took place on a geometrically complex fault system in central Alaska. We use a combination of local seismic and Global Positioning System (GPS) data for our kinematic inversion and find that the slip distribution...

The Long Valley Volcanic Field in east-central California straddles the East Sierran frontal fault zone, overlapping the Sierra Nevada and western Basin and Range Provinces. The volcanic field overlies a mature mid-Tertiary erosional surface that truncates a basement composed mainly of Mesozoic plutons and associated roof pendants of Mesozoic metavolcanic and Paleozoic metasedimentary...

Evaluation of the erosional response of 95 recently burned watersheds in Colorado, New Mexico, and southern California to storm rainfall established the factors that best differentiate between debris-flow producing basins and those that produced other flow responses. These factors are drainage-basin morphology and lithology, and the presence or absence of water-repellent soils. Basins...

The volcanic history of the Long Valley region is examined within a framework of six successive (spatially discrete) foci of silicic magmatism, each driven by locally concentrated basaltic intrusion of the deep crust in response to extensional unloading and decompression melting of the upper mantle. A precaldera dacite field (3.5–2.5 Ma) northwest of the later site of Long Valley and the...

Data from the 2002 Denali fault earthquake recorded at 26 sites in and near Anchorage, Alaska, show a number of systematic features important in studies of site response and in constructing long-period spectra for use in earthquake engineering. The data demonstrate that National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) site classes are a useful way of grouping stations according to...

The ground motion hazard for Sumatra and the Malaysian peninsula is calculated in a probabilistic framework, using procedures developed for the US National Seismic Hazard Maps. We constructed regional earthquake source models and used standard published and modified attenuation equations to calculate peak ground acceleration at 2% and 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years for rock...

We describe an event tree scheme to quantitatively estimate both long- and short-term volcanic hazard. The procedure is based on a Bayesian approach that produces a probability estimation of any possible event in which we are interested and can make use of all available information including theoretical models, historical and geological data, and monitoring observations. The main steps...

Crustal-scale seismic-velocity models across the Denali fault zone along the Richardson Highway show a 50-km-thick crust, a near vertical fault trace, and a 5-km-wide damage zone associated with the fault near Trans-Alaska Pipeline Pump Station 10, which provided the closest strong ground motion recordings of the 2002 Denali fault earthquake. We compare models, derived from seismic...

Sedimentary rocks at Eagle crater in Meridiani Planum are composed of fine-grained siliciclastic materials derived from weathering of basaltic rocks, sulfate minerals (including magnesium sulfate and jarosite) that constitute several tens of percent of the rock by weight, and hematite. Cross-stratification observed in rock outcrops indicates eolian and aqueous transport. Diagenetic...

Thirty interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) images, spanning various intervals during 1992–2000, document coeruptive and posteruptive deformation of the 1992–1993 eruption on Seguam Island, Alaska. A procedure that combines standard damped least squares inverse methods and collective surfaces, identifies three dominant amorphous clusters of deformation point sources...