Adrian M Bender
I work in support of the USGS Earthquake Hazards and Mineral Resources Projects in Alaska using remote (mostly lidar and digital photogrammetry), field (surveying, mapping, trenching, coring, seismics), and laboratory (cosmogenic and radiocarbon dating, organic stable isotope geochemistry, thermochronology) techniques to facilitate mission-related research.
Biography
Education
M.S. 2015 Western Washington University (WWU) Geology
B.S. 2012 University of Alaska, Anchorage (UAA) Geology
Professional Experience
2015 - Present Geologist, USGS Alaska Science Center, Anchorage, Alaska
2012 - 2015 Physical Science Tech, USGS Alaska Science Center, Anchorage, Alaska
2014 - 2015 Graduate Research Assistant, Western Washington University
2013 - 2014 Graduate Teaching Assistant, Western Washington University
2010 - 2012 Undergraduate Lab Assistant, University of Alaska, Anchorage
Professional Activities and/or Memberships
American Geophysical Union (2012-present)
Geological Society of America (2013-present)
Honors and/or Awards
- WWU Outstanding Graduate Award, Geology Department (2015)
- Hecla-Greens Creek Scholarship (2011)
- Chugach Gem and Mineral Society Scholarship (2012)
- Fran Ulmer Transformative Research Award, UAA (2012)
- Global Change Research Grant, UA Statewide (2012)
- Geological Society of America Graduate Student Research Grant (2014)
- Geology Graduate Student Research Grant, WWU (2014)
My Google Scholar profile can be found here
Science and Products
Alaska Earthquake and Tsunami Hazards
Alaska has more large earthquakes than the rest of the United States combined. More than three-quarters of the state’s population live in an area that can experience a magnitude 7 earthquake. Our research provides objective science that helps stakeholders prepare for and mitigate the effects of future earthquakes and tsunamis, which bolsters the economic health and well-being of Alaska and the...
Alaska Seismic Hazard Map
The National Seismic Hazard Maps developed by the USGS show the spatial probability of peak earthquake-driven ground motion levels. Since the last revisions to the map for Alaska in 2007, scientists have made significant advances in understanding active faulting, fault slip rates, and fault behavior.
Characterizing the Active Queen Charlotte-Fairweather Fault System
This research aims to better characterize the earthquake potential of the southern Fairweather Fault in order to provide more accurate fault source data for the USGS National Seismic Hazard Map. Our approach interrogates lidar data and satellite imagery, applies paleoseismological methods to examine earthquake history, and leverages partnerships with USGS scientists from Colorado and...
Extreme Quaternary plate boundary exhumation and strike slip localized along the southern Fairweather fault, Alaska, USA
The Fairweather fault (southeastern Alaska, USA) is Earth’s fastest-slipping intracontinental strike-slip fault, but its long-term role in localizing Yakutat–(Pacific–)North America plate motion is poorly constrained. This plate boundary fault transitions northward from pure strike slip to transpression where it comes onshore and undergoes a <...
Lease, Richard O.; Haeussler, Peter; Witter, Robert C.; Stockli, Daniel F.; Bender, Adrian; Kelsey, Harvey; O'Sullivan, Paul
Ground failure triggered by shaking during the November 30, 2018, magnitude 7.1 Anchorage, Alaska, earthquake
We developed an initial inventory of ground failure features from the November 30, 2018, magnitude 7.1 Anchorage earthquake. This inventory of 153 features is from ground-based observations soon after the earthquake (December 5–10) that include the presence or absence of liquefaction, landslides, and individual crack traces of lateral spreads and...
Grant, Alex R. R. ; Jibson, Randall W.; Witter, Robert C.; Allstadt, Kate E.; Thompson, Eric M.; Bender, Adrian M. Ground failure from the Anchorage, Alaska, earthquake of 30 November 2018
Investigation of ground failure triggered by the 2018 Mw">MwMw 7.1 Anchorage earthquake showed that landslides, liquefaction, and ground cracking all occurred and caused significant damage. Shallow rock falls and rock slides were the most abundant types of landslides, but they occurred in smaller numbers than global models that are...
Jibson, Randall W.; Grant, Alex R. R. ; Witter, Robert C.; Allstadt, Kate; Thompson, Eric M.; Bender, Adrian The 30 November 2018 Mw7.1 Anchorage Earthquake
The Mw">Mw 7.1 47 km deep earthquake that occurred on 30 November 2018 had deep societal impacts across southcentral Alaska and exhibited phenomena of broad scientific interest. We document observations that point to future directions of research and hazard mitigation. The rupture mechanism, aftershocks, and deformation of the...
West, Michael E.; Bender, Adrian; Gardine, Matthew; Gardine, Lea; Gately, Kara; Haeussler, Peter; Hassan, Wael; Meyer, Franz; Richards, Cole; Ruppert, Natalia; Tape, Carl; Thornley, John; Witter, Robert Pace and process of active folding and fluvial incision across the Kantishna Hills anticline, central Alaska
Rates of northern Alaska Range thrust system deformation are poorly constrained. Shortening at the system's west end is focused on the Kantishna Hills anticline. Where the McKinley River cuts across the anticline, the landscape records both Late Pleistocene deformation and climatic change. New optically stimulated luminescence and cosmogenic ...
Bender, Adrian; Lease, Richard O.; Haeussler, Peter; Rittenour, Tammy M.; Corbett, Lee B.; Bierman, Paul R.; Caffee, Marc W. The Peters Hills basin, a Neogene wedge-top basin on the Broad Pass thrust fault, south-central Alaska
The Neogene Peters Hills basin is a small terrestrial basin that formed along the south flank of the Alaska Range during a time in which there was regional shortening. The formation of the Peters Hills basin is consistent with it being a wedge-top basin that formed on top of the active southeast-vergent Broad Pass thrust fault. Movement along this...
Haeussler, Peter J.; Saltus, Richard W.; Stanley, Richard G.; Ruppert, Natalia; Lewis, Kristen; Karl, Susan M.; Bender, Adrian M.
Sculpted by water, elevated by earthquakes—The coastal landscape of Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska
Within Glacier Bay National Park in southeastern Alaska, the Fairweather Fault represents the onshore boundary between two of Earth’s constantly moving tectonic plates: the North American Plate and the Yakutat microplate. Satellite measurements indicate that during the past few decades the Yakutat microplate has moved northwest at a rate of nearly...
Witter, Robert C.; LeWinter, Adam; Bender, Adrian M.; Glennie, Craig; Finnegan, David
Eastern Denali Fault surface trace map, eastern Alaska and Yukon, Canada
We map the 385-kilometer (km) long surface trace of the right-lateral, strike-slip Denali Fault between the Totschunda-Denali Fault intersection in Alaska, United States and the village of Haines Junction, Yukon, Canada. In Alaska, digital elevation models based on light detection and ranging and interferometric synthetic aperture radar data...
Bender, Adrian M.; Haeussler, Peter J. Differential uplift and incision of the Yakima River terraces, central Washington State
The fault-related Yakima folds deform Miocene basalts and younger deposits of the Columbia Plateau in central Washington State. Geodesy implies ~2 mm/yr of NNE directed shortening across the folds, but until now the distribution and rates of Quaternary deformation among individual structures has been unclear. South of Ellensburg, Washington...
Bender, Adrian M.; Amos, Colin B.; Bierman, Paul R.; Rood, Dylan; Staisch, Lydia M.; Kelsey, Harvey M.; Sherrod, Brian Unusually large tsunamis frequent a currently creeping part of the Aleutian megathrust
Current models used to assess earthquake and tsunami hazards are inadequate where creep dominates a subduction megathrust. Here we report geological evidence for large tsunamis, occurring on average every 300–340 years, near the source areas of the 1946 and 1957 Aleutian tsunamis. These areas bookend a postulated seismic gap over 200 km long...
Witter, Robert C.; Carver, G.A.; Briggs, Richard W.; Gelfenbaum, Guy R.; Koehler, R.D.; La Selle, SeanPaul M.; Bender, Adrian M.; Engelhart, S.E.; Hemphill-Haley, E.; Hill, Troy D. Testing the use of bulk organic δ13C, δ15N, and Corg:Ntot ratios to estimate subsidence during the 1964 great Alaska earthquake
During the Mw 9.2 1964 great Alaska earthquake, Turnagain Arm near Girdwood, Alaska subsided 1.7 ± 0.1 m based on pre- and postearthquake leveling. The coseismic subsidence in 1964 caused equivalent sudden relative sea-level (RSL) rise that is stratigraphically preserved as mud-over-peat contacts where intertidal silt...
Bender, Adrian M.; Witter, Robert C.; Rogers, Matthew