USGS Announces Awards for 2020 Applied Earthquake Research and Monitoring in the U.S.

The U.S Geological Survey announces that the agency will award more than $20 million in 2020 for applied earthquake research, seismic and geodetic monitoring activities in moderate- to high-risk areas nationwide. More than 40 universities, state geological surveys, and private institutions are the recipients of grants and cooperative agreements in 2020. Furthermore, additional funding for the west coast ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system will be awarded later this year.

Research grants funded in 2020 include:

• Using a machine-learning approach to investigate ground-motion alerts for earthquake early warning.
• Evaluating outer-rise earthquake hazards from the Puerto Rico trench.
• Improving deformation and fault compatibility using earthquake simulators and next-generation hazard models.
• Determining temporal characteristics of aftershock sequences in the Intermountain West.
• Determining earthquake-hazard implications and deformation rate recorded by marine terraces above the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
• Investigating the distribution of fault creep on San Francisco Bay area faults.

USGS will also provide funds for applied earthquake research through a cooperative agreement with the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC), a university research consortium that supports research and education in seismology, tectonic geodesy, earthquake geology, computational science, and many interdisciplinary studies in earthquake science in Southern California and elsewhere. 

Funds are also being provided for earthquake monitoring through cooperative agreements with several regional seismic and geodetic networks of the USGS Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS). The ANSS is a cooperative effort to collect and analyze seismic and geodetic data on earthquakes, issue timely and reliable notifications of their occurrence and impacts and provide data for earthquake research and the hazard and risk assessments that are the foundation for creating an earthquake-resilient nation. 

External research supports important work such as mapping seismic hazards, developing earthquake planning scenarios, defining the prehistoric record of large earthquakes, investigating the origins of earthquakes, and improving methods for predicting earthquake effects.

For a complete list of funded earthquake projects, and reports of previously funded work, visit:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/external/

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/cfusion/external_grants/networks.cfm

The USGS provides science for a changing world. For more information, visit www.usgs.gov.