Science Explorer
Exploring: Earthquakes
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Earthquakes
The latest and historical earthquakes, hazards information, educational resources, maps, seismographic stations and real-time recording, current research in plain language, data, software and derived products.
How physics‐based earthquake simulators might help improve earthquake forecasts
Questions have persisted on the usefulness of physics‐based earthquake simulators with respect to forecasting earthquakes, due mostly to the inevitable assumptions, approximations, and uncertainties. Whether any model is reliable or trustworthy depends entirely on what questions we are asking of it, so the point of this article is to outline a...
Attribution: Geologic Hazards Science Center, Natural Hazards
Rupture model of the M5.8 Pawnee, Oklahoma earthquake from regional and teleseismic waveforms
The 2016 M5.8 Pawnee, Oklahoma earthquake is the largest earthquake to have been induced by wastewater disposal. We infer the coseismic slip history from analysis of apparent source time functions and inversion of regional and teleseismic P‐waveforms, using aftershocks as empirical Green's functions. The earthquake nucleated on the shallow part of...
Attribution: Geologic Hazards Science Center, Natural Hazards
Rayleigh wave ellipticity measurement uncertainty across the IRIS/USGS and New China Digital Seismograph Networks
Long-period Rayleigh wave horizontal to vertical amplitude (H/V) ratios at a station provide information about local earth structure that is complementary to phase velocity. However, a number of studies have observed that significant scatter appears in these measurements making it difficult to use H/V ratio measurements to resolve earth structure...
Attribution: Geologic Hazards Science Center, Natural Hazards
Nate Wood is a research geographer with the USGS Western Geographic Science Center and is co-located at the USGS Oregon Water Science Center in Portland, Oregon. He has conducted research and written extensively on community vulnerability to natural hazards, such as tsunami threats to Washington, Oregon, California, Hawaii and Alaska;...
Core players in “Expanding Pacific Research and Exploration of Submerged Systems” (EXPRESS) held a planning workshop at the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center in Santa Cruz, California, November 29–30.
I am a USGS Mendenhall postdoc and marine geophysicist interested in tectonic problems related to active fault systems, particularly strike-slip systems, and how to better understand modern geohazards in the context of active tectonics.
Natural Hazards, Coastal/Marine Hazards and Resources, Pacific, Mendenhall Research Fellowship Program, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
I study how landscapes change over time, focusing on response to hydroclimatic and anthropogenic disturbances. These studies inform resource management as well as fundamental understanding of earth-surface processes. I am also interested in how sediment moves from source to sink, and how the sedimentary record reflects changes in sediment supply...
Natural Hazards, Coastal/Marine Hazards and Resources, Pacific, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
I currently lead a project called "Marine Geohazards of the U.S. West Coast and Alaska" and I spend about 6-10 weeks per year at sea collecting marine geophysical data. You can learn more about the project and its members here
Natural Hazards, Coastal/Marine Hazards and Resources, Pacific, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
I study seafloor geology along the West Coast of the U.S. using various types of geophysical surveys to map the seafloor and image sub-seafloor strata. The purpose of this work is to help understand the hazards posed to coastal communities and infrastructure by offshore active faults and submarine landslides.
Natural Hazards, Coastal/Marine Hazards and Resources, Pacific, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
My research activities focus on characterizing changes in land use and disturbance – past, present and future - and how they impact ecosystem carbon dynamics. I lead two large projects which have shared goals of further developing USGS capabilities in land change science and ecosystem carbon cycling. I lead the development of the LUCAS...
Land Resources, Climate Research and Development Program, Land Change Science Program, Pacific, Western Geographic Science Center
At the USGS Laura has worked on the NWIS database, GIS maps, compiling various datasets for analysis, description of well core, land-use land-cover characterization of well locations, and provided field support. Previously she has mapped surficial features/geology, compiled borehole log information, created GIS maps, documented earthquakes and...
Within the central and eastern United States, the number of earthquakes has increased dramatically over the past few years. Are they natural, or man-made? And what should be done in the future? Read about current research on induced earthquakes due to human activities. Observations, modeling, and hazards.
Annual number of earthquakes with a magnitude of 3.0 or larger in the central and eastern United States, 1970–2016. The long-term rate of approximately 25 earthquakes per year increased sharply starting around 2009.
USGS publications on induced seismicity.
The USGS uses numerical simulations of earth processes to: Evaluate the physical relationships between fluid injection and earthquakes at specific sites, and to simulate possible future behaviors of new and ongoing injection projects.
The USGS is currently developing new methods to evaluate the hazard due to induced earthquakes. These methods will account for the rapid changes in earthquake rate that we have witnessed in the past few years.
The USGS is currently studying seismicity that may be induced at 6 locations across the United States. These studies involve earthquake monitoring, examining industrial data, and evaluating any relationships between seismicity and industrial actions.
What you do and don’t know about induced seismicity.
General research statement:I investigate Quaternary earthquake records via field-based investigation, high-resolution topographic datasets (e.g., lidar, SfM), and geochronology. I serve as Intermountain West Coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake Hazard Program with a focus on characterizing seismic sources across the...
Between the years 1973–2008, there was an average of 25 earthquakes of magnitude three and larger in the central and eastern United States. This rate ballooned to over 600 M3+ earthquakes in 2014 and over 1000 in 2015. Since 2015 the earthquake rate has declined significantly (364 M3+ earthquakes in 2017), but this is still much higher than the...