Publications

Habitats, such as coral reefs, can mitigate increasing flood damages through coastal protection services. We provide a fine-scale, national valuation of the flood risk reduction benefits of coral habitats to people, property, economies and infrastructure. Across 3,100 km of US coastline, the top-most 1 m of coral reefs prevents the 100-yr flood from growing by 23% (113 km2), avoiding...

This study addresses questions about the productivity of Cascadia mainshock–aftershock sequences using earthquake catalogs produced by the Geological Survey of Canada and the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. Questions concern the likelihood that future moderate to large intermediate depth intraslab earthquakes in Cascadia would have as few detectable aftershocks as those documented...

This study presents the coupling of the spectral decomposition results for anelastic attenuation, stress drop, and site effects with the Graves‐Pitarka (GP) hybrid ground‐motion simulation methodology, as implemented on the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) broadband platform (BBP). It is targeted to applications in the Upper Rhine graben (URG), which is among the seismically...

The Curiosity rover is exploring Hesperian-aged stratigraphy in Gale crater, Mars, where a transition from clay-bearing units to a layered sulfate-bearing unit has been interpreted to represent a major environmental transition of unknown character. We present the first description of key facies in the sulfate-bearing unit, recently observed in the distance by the rover, and propose a...

Surficial mass wasting events are a hazard worldwide. Seismic and acoustic signals from these often remote processes, combined with other geophysical observations, can provide key information for monitoring and rapid response efforts and enhance our understanding of event dynamics. Here, we present seismoacoustic data and analyses for two very large ice–rock avalanches occurring on...

Fine-scale (submillimeter to centimeter) depositional and diagenetic features encountered during the Curiosity rover's traverse in Gale crater provide a means to understand the geologic history of Vera Rubin ridge (VRR). VRR is a topographically high feature on the lower north slope of Aeolis Mons, a 5-km high stratified mound within Gale crater. We use high-spatial resolution images...

Both earthquake displacement and rupture length correlate with magnitude, and therefore observations of each from past earthquakes can be used to estimate the magnitude of those earthquakes in the absence of instrumental records. We extend the Bayesian inversion method of Biasi and Weldon (2006), which estimates paleoearthquake magnitude from displacement observations, to incorporate...

Martian subsurface habitability and astrobiology can be evaluated via a lava tube cave, without drilling. MACIE addresses two key goals of the Decadal Survey (2013–2022) and three MEPAG goals. New advances in robotic architectures, autonomous navigation, target sample selection, and analysis will enable MACIE to explore the Martian subsurface.

Seismograms from the South Pole have been important for seismological observations for over six decades by providing (until 2007) the only continuous seismic records from the interior of the Antarctic continent. The South Pole, Antarctica station has undergone many updates over the years, including conversion to a digital recording station as part of the Global Seismographic Network (GSN...

The accuracy of timing across a seismic network is important for locating earthquakes as well as studies that use phase‐arrival information (e.g., tomography). The Global Seismographic Network (GSN) was designed with the goal of having reported timing be better than 10 ms. In this work, we provide a brief overview of how timing is kept across the GSN and discuss how clock‐quality metrics...

Lithified aeolian strata encode information about ancient planetary surface processes and the climate during deposition. Decoding these strata provides insight regarding past sediment transport processes, bedform kinematics, depositional landscape, and the prevailing climate. Deciphering these signatures requires a detailed analysis of sedimentary architecture to reconstruct dune...

The Global Seismographic Network (GSN) is a multiuse, globally distributed seismic network used by seismologists, to both characterize earthquakes and study the Earth’s interior. Most stations in the network have two collocated broadband seismometers, which enable network operators to identify potential metadata and sensor issues. In this study, we investigate the accuracy with which...