Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Publications

Filter Total Items: 2571

Revised earthquake recurrence intervals in California, USA: New paleoseismic sites and application of event likelihoods

Recurrence intervals for ground rupturing earthquakes are critical data for assessing seismic hazard. Recurrence intervals are presented here for 38 paleoseismic sites in California. Eleven of these include new or updated data; the remainder use data previously included in the Unified California Earthquake Rupture Forecast Version 3 (UCERF3). The methods and results are consistent with UCERF3. In
Authors
Devin McPhillips

Quantifying modeling uncertainty in simplified beam models for building response prediction

The use of simple models for response prediction of building structures is preferred in earthquake engineering for risk evaluations at regional scales, as they make computational studies more feasible. The primary impediment in their gainful use presently is the lack of viable methods for quantifying (and reducing upon) the modeling errors/uncertainties they bear. This study presents a Bayesian ca
Authors
S. Farid Ghahari, Khachik Sargsyan, Mehmet Çelebi, Ertugrul Taciroglu

Simplifying complex fault data for systems-level analysis: Earthquake geology inputs for U.S. NSHM 2023

As part of the U.S. National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM) update planned for 2023, two databases were prepared to more completely represent Quaternary-active faulting across the western United States: the NSHM23 fault sections database (FSD) and earthquake geology database (EQGeoDB). In prior iterations of NSHM, fault sections were included only if a field-measurement-derived slip rate was estimate
Authors
Alexandra Elise Hatem, Camille Marie Collett, Richard W. Briggs, Ryan D. Gold, Stephen J. Angster, Edward H. Field, Peter M. Powers

Stress heterogeneity as a driver of aseismic slip during the 2011 Prague, Oklahoma aftershock sequence

The interaction of aseismic and seismic slip before and after an earthquake is fundamental for both earthquake nucleation and postseismic stress relaxation. However, it can be difficult to determine where and when aseismic slip occurs within the seismogenic zone because geodetic techniques are limited to detecting moderate to large slip amplitudes or long duration small slip amplitudes. Here, we u
Authors
Kristina Okamoto, Heather Savage, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Katie M. Keranen

Brittle faulting at elevated temperature and vanishing effective stress

If brittle fault strength depends only on friction, slip instability is discouraged at low effective normal stress, σ. Stress drop and the critical stiffness necessary for unstable sliding both vanish with σ; small earthquakes cannot occur. Very low σ is inferred in the source region of low-frequency earthquakes (LFEs) on the San Andreas fault (SAF). Moreover, if pore pressure, p, is undrained at
Authors
Nicholas M. Beeler

Introduction to the special issue of the Consortium of Organizations for Strong Motion Observation Systems (COSMOS) international guidelines for applying noninvasive geophysical techniques to characterize seismic site conditions

Knowledge about local seismic site conditions provides critical information to account for site effects that are commonly observed in strong motion recordings. Certainly, other wave propagation effects can influence these observations, which are attributable to variations in material properties of the paths traveled by the waves, as well as the characteristics of the seismic source. However, local
Authors
Alan Yong, Aysegul Askan, John Cassidy, Sebastiano D'Amico, Stefano Parolai, Marco Pilz, William J. Stephenson

Diatom influence on the production characteristics of hydrate-bearing sediments: Examples from Ulleung Basin, offshore South Korea

The Ulleung Basin Gas Hydrate field expeditions in 2007 (UBGH1) and 2010 (UBGH2) sought to assess the Basin's gas hydrate resource potential. Coring operations in both expeditions recovered evidence of gas hydrate, primarily as fracture-filling (or vein type) morphologies in mainly silt-sized, fine-grained sediment, but also as pore-occupying hydrate in the coarser-grained layers of interbedded sa
Authors
Junbong Jang, William F. Waite, Laura A. Stern, Joo Yong Lee

Flexible multimethod approach for seismic site characterization

We describe the flexible multimethod seismic site characterization technique for obtaining shear-wave velocity (VS) profiles and derivative information, such as the time-averaged VS of the upper 30 m (VS30). Simply stated, the multimethod approach relies on the application of multiple independent noninvasive site characterization acquisition and analysis techniques utilized in a flexible field-bas
Authors
William J. Stephenson, Alan Yong, Antony Martin

Beyond the teleseism: Introducing regional seismic and geodetic data into routine USGS finite‐fault modeling

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) routinely produces finite‐fault models following significant earthquakes. These models are spatiotemporal estimates of coseismic slip critical to constraining downstream response products such as ShakeMap ground motion estimates, Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquake for Response loss estimates, and ground failure ass
Authors
Dara Elyse Goldberg, Pablo Koch, Diego Melgar, Sebastian Riquelme, William L. Yeck

Seismic monitoring solutions for buildings

This chapter introduces seismic monitoring of structural systems for buildings and begins with a historical background of this topic in the United States. After providing the historical context, the chapter reviews common seismic instrumentation issues such as utilization of data, code versus extensive instrumentation, free-field instrumentation, record synchronization requirements and more. Recen
Authors
Mehmet Çelebi, Yavuz Kaya

Real-time earthquake detection and alerting behavior of PLUM ground-motion-based early warning in the United States

We examine the real‐time earthquake detection and alerting behavior of the Propagation of Local Undamped Motion (PLUM) earthquake early warning (EEW) algorithm and compare PLUM’s performance with the real‐time performance of the current source‐characterization‐based ShakeAlert System. In the United States (U.S.), PLUM uses a two‐station approach to detect earthquakes. Once a detection is confirmed
Authors
Jessie Kate Saunders, Sarah E. Minson, Annemarie S. Baltay, Julian J Bunn, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Deborah L. Kilb, Colin T O'Rourke, Mitsuyuki Hoshiba, Yuki Kodera