Publications

Case studies where time of failure is known for rainfall-triggered debris flows can be used to estimate the parameters of a hazard model in which the probability of failure is a function of time. As an example, a time-dependent function for the conditional probability of a soil slip is estimated from independent variables representing hillside morphology, approximations of material...

The generation of seismically induced landslide depends on the characteristics of shaking as well as mechanical properties of geologic materials. A very important parameter in the study of seismically induced landslide is the intensity based on a strong-motion accelerogram: it is defined as Arias intensity and is proportional to the duration of the shaking record as well as the amplitude...

Professional Paper 1553 describes how people and organizations responded to the earthquake and how the earthquake impacted people and society. The investigations evaluate the tools available to the research community to measure the nature, extent, and causes of damage and losses. They describe human behavior during and immediately after the earthquake and how citizens participated in...

Professional Paper 1550 seeks to understand the M6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake itself. It examines how the fault that generated the earthquake ruptured, searches for and evaluates precursors that may have indicated an earthquake was coming, reviews forecasts of the earthquake, and describes the geology of the earthquake area and the crustal forces that affect this geology. Some significant...

Many landslides and debris flows have originated from Mount Rainier since the retreat of glaciers from Puget Sound about 10,000 years ago. The recurrent instability is due to several factors--height of the steep-sided volcanic cone, frequent volcanic activity, continuous weakening of rock by steam and hot, chemical-laden water, and exposure of unstable areas as the mountains glaciers...

On June 27, 1992, the Crater Peak vent on the south side of Mt. Spurr awoke from 39 years of dormancy and burst into subplinian eruption after 10 months of elevated seismicity. Two more eruptions followed in August and September. The volcano lies 125-km west of Anchorage, which is Alaska's largest city and an important international hub for air travel. The Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO...

No abstract available.

No abstract available.

In a handful of molten magma weighing about a pound, there is less than a tenth of an ounce, by weight, of idssolved gas-roughly the same weight as a pinch of table salt. Yet this tiny amount of gas produces spectacular lava foundations hundreds of meters high (see accompanying photograph). The fountain occurs as magma reaches the surface, because dissolved volcanic gases exolve and...

We measured the velocities of six glacier tongues and a few tongues within ice shelves distributed around the Antarctic coastline by determining the displacement of crevasse patterns seen on sequential Landsat images. The velocities range from less than 0.2 km a−1 for East Antarctic ice-shelf tongues to more than 2.5 km a−1 for the Thwaites Glacier Tongue. All glacier tongues show...

Study of debris-flow geomorphology and initiation mechanism has led to better understanding of debris-flow processes. This paper reviews how this understanding is used in current techniques for assessment and prediction of debris-flow hazards.

No abstract available.