Publications

This is the forth in a series of six reports that the U.S. Geological Survey published on the results of a comprehensive geologic study that began, as a reconnaissance survey, within 24 hours after the March 27, 1964, Magnitude 9.2 Great Alaska Earthquake and extended, as detailed investigations, through several field seasons. The 1964 Great Alaska earthquake was the largest earthquake...

The March 27, 1964, Alaska earthquake and its associated aftershocks caused damage requiring several million dollars worth of repair to the Eklwtna Hydroelectric Project, 34 miles northeast of Anchorage. Electric service from the Eklutna powerplant was interrupted during the early phase of the March 27 earthquake, built was restored (intermittently) until May 9,1964, when the plant was...

Seward, in south-central Alaska, was one of the towns most devastated by the Alaska earthquake of March 27, 1964. The greater part of Seward is built on an alluvial fan-delta near the head of Resurrection Bay on the southeast coast of the Kenai Peninsula. It is one of the few ports in south-central Alaska that is ice free all year, and the town’s economy is almost entirely dependent upon...

Project Sterling provided for the detonation of a nuclear device in the cavity resulting from the Salmon nuclear explosion in the Tatum salt dome in southern Mississippi. It also provided for a high explosive (HE) comparison shot in a nearby drill hole. The purpose of the experiment was to gather information on the seismic decoupling of a nuclear explosion in a cavity by comparing...

A paleomagnetic and K-Ar dating study of 44 upper Miocene and Pliocene volcanic units from the western United States suggests that the frequency of reversals of the earth's magnetic field during Pliocene time may have been comparable with that of the last 3.6 m.y. Although the data are too limited to permit the formal naming of any new polarity epochs or events, four polarity transitions...

The lower lava flow of Bed I in Olduvai Gorge, Tanganyika, carries natural remanent magnetization (NRM) having normal polarity. Thermal demagnetization experiments demonstrate the stability of this NRM. Thus the Olduvai geomagnetic polarity event, which was originally named from the upper lava flow in Bed I, is represented in its type locality by two normally magnetized lavas. These...

The earthquake of March 27, 1964, wrecked or severely hampered all forms of transportation, all utilities, and all communications systems over a very large part of south-central Alaska. Effects on air transportation were minor as compared to those on the water, highway, and railroad transport systems. A few planes were damaged or wrecked by seismic vibration or by flooding. Numerous...

Two reverse faults on southwestern Montague Island in Prince William Sound were reactivated during the earthquake of March 27, 1964. New fault scarps, fissures, cracks, and flexures appeared in bedrock and unconsolidated surficial deposits along or near the fault traces. Average strike of the faults is between N. 37° E. and N. 47° E.; they dip northwest at angles ranging from 50° to 85°...

The Alaska earthquake of March 27, 1964, had widespread hydrologic effects throughout practically all of the United States. More than 1,450 water-level recorders, scattered throughout all the 50 States except Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island, registered the earthquake. Half of the water-level records were obtained from ground-water observation wells and half at surface-water...

Analysis of cores collected from a sequence of lavas in Eastern Iceland has made possible an accurate calculation of the average rate of reversal of the Earth's magnetic field.

The great earthquake (Richter magnitude of 8.4–8.5) that struck south-central Alaska at 5:36 p.m., Alaska standard time, on March 27, 1964 (03:36, March 28, Greenwich mean time), was felt in every community on Kodiak Island and the nearby islands. It was the most severe earthquake to strike this part of Alaska in modern time, and took the lives of 18 persons in the area by drowning; this...

U.S. Geological Survey instrumental seismic studies in the Parkfield-Cholame area consist of three related parts that were undertaken as pilot studies in a program designed to develop improved tools and concepts for investigating the properties and behavior of the San Andreas fault. These studies include: 1. The long=term monitoring of the seismic background on the San Andreas fault in...