Sarah Minson
Sarah Minson is a research geophysicist in the U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Science Center in Moffett Field, California. She uses probabilistic inference to understand earthquakes and how uncertainty impacts our understanding of natural hazards.
Sarah’s research attempts to understand not only how faults slip, but also to understand what we can and cannot determine about earthquake ruptures and how these uncertainties affect our estimates of potential earthquake impacts.
She has also studied earthquake early warning to determine what kinds of warning are possible and what kind of accuracy can be achieved.
In addition to her research, Sarah participates in outreach activities to communicate her research results to the public, media, and stakeholders. She was a 2020 IRIS/SSA distinguished lecturer and is the recipient of several honors including a 2014 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), which is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers.
Professional Experience
2014 – Present Research Geophysicist, U.S. Geological Survey
2014 Postdoctoral Fellow, California Institute of Technology
2011 – 2013 Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow, U.S. Geological Survey
Education and Certifications
2010 Ph.D. in Geophysics, California Institute of Technology
Thesis: “A Bayesian Approach to Earthquake Source Studies ”2005 M.S. in Geophysics, California Institute of Technology
2003 B.A. in Geophysics with Highest Distinction in General Scholarship, University of California, Berkeley
Honors Thesis: “Source Mechanisms of Volcanic Induced Seismicity”
Honors and Awards
2021, 2021, 2019, 2016 U.S. Geological Survey STAR Award
2020 U.S. Geological Survey Superior Service Award “In recognition of her outstanding contributions to the Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) systems of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).”
2020 IRIS/SSA Distinguished Lectureship
2018 – 2022 Kavli Fellow (National Academy of Sciences and The Kavli Foundation)
2014 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)
2011 – 2013 U.S. Geological Survey Mendenhall Fellowship
2009 Outstanding Student Paper Award – AGU Fall Meeting
2006 – 2009 NASA Earth System Science Fellowship
2003 – 2004 Gutenberg Fellowship, California Institute of Technology
2002 – 2003 Ramsden Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley
2003 Departmental Citation in Recognition of Distinguished Undergraduate Accomplishment, University of California, Berkeley
2003 Outstanding Woman Student Award, Association of Women Geoscientists
2002 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, University of California, Berkeley
Science and Products
Coseismic slip and early afterslip of the M6.0 August 24, 2014 South Napa, California, earthquake
Event detection performance of the PLUM earthquake early warning algorithm in southern California
Peak ground displacement saturates exactly when expected: Implications for earthquake early warning
The limits of earthquake early warning accuracy and best alerting strategy
Development of a geodetic component for the U.S. West Coast Earthquake Early Warning System
Research to improve ShakeAlert earthquake early warning products and their utility
The limits of earthquake early warning: Timeliness of ground motion estimates
Leveraging geodetic data to reduce losses from earthquakes
Compositional variations in sands of the Bagnold Dunes, Gale Crater, Mars, from visible-shortwave infrared spectroscopy and comparison with ground truth from the Curiosity Rover
Buried shallow fault slip from the South Napa earthquake revealed by near-field geodesy
Combining multiple earthquake models in real time for earthquake early warning
Finite‐fault Bayesian inversion of teleseismic body waves
Science and Products
- Science
- Publications
Filter Total Items: 30
Coseismic slip and early afterslip of the M6.0 August 24, 2014 South Napa, California, earthquake
We employ strong motion seismograms and static offsets from the Global Positioning System, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, and other measurements in order to derive a coseismic slip and afterslip model of the M6.0 24 August 2014 South Napa earthquake. This earthquake ruptured an ∼13‐km‐long portion of the West Napa fault with predominantly right‐lateral strike slip. In the kinematic seisAuthorsFred Pollitz, Jessica R. Murray, Sarah E. Minson, Charles W. Wicks, Jerry L. Svarc, Benjamin A. BrooksEvent detection performance of the PLUM earthquake early warning algorithm in southern California
We test the Japanese ground‐motion‐based earthquake early warning (EEW) algorithm, propagation of local undamped motion (PLUM), in southern California with application to the U.S. ShakeAlert system. In late 2018, ShakeAlert began limited public alerting in Los Angeles to areas of expected modified Mercalli intensity (IMMI) 4.0+ for magnitude 5.0+ earthquakes. Most EEW systems, including ShakeAleAuthorsElizabeth S. Cochran, Julian Bunn, Sarah E. Minson, Annemarie S. Baltay, Deborah L. Kilb, Y. Kodera, Mitsuyuki HoshibaPeak ground displacement saturates exactly when expected: Implications for earthquake early warning
The scaling of rupture properties with magnitude is of critical importance to earthquake early warning (EEW) systems that rely on source characterization using limited snapshots of waveform data. ShakeAlert, a prototype EEW system that is being developed for the western United States, provides real-time estimates of earthquake magnitude based on P-wave peak ground displacements measured at stationAuthorsDaniel T. Trugman, Morgan T. Page, Sarah E. Minson, Elizabeth S. CochranThe limits of earthquake early warning accuracy and best alerting strategy
We explore how accurate earthquake early warning (EEW) can be, given our limited ability to forecast expected shaking even if the earthquake source is known. Because of the strong variability of ground motion metrics, such as peak ground acceleration (PGA) and peak ground velocity (PGV), we find that correct alerts (i.e., alerts that accurately predict the observed ground motion above a predetermAuthorsSarah E. Minson, Annemarie S. Baltay, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Thomas C. Hanks, Morgan T. Page, Sara McBride, Kevin R. Milner, Men-Andrin MeierDevelopment of a geodetic component for the U.S. West Coast Earthquake Early Warning System
An earthquake early warning (EEW) system, ShakeAlert, is under development for the West Coast of the United States. This system currently uses the first few seconds of waveforms recorded by seismic instrumentation to rapidly characterize earthquake magnitude, location, and origin time; ShakeAlert recently added a seismic line source algorithm. For large to great earthquakes, magnitudes estimated fAuthorsJessica R. Murray, Brendan W. Crowell, R. Grapenthin, Kathleen Hodgkinson, John O. Langbein, Timothy Melbourne, Diego Melgar, Sarah E. Minson, David A. SchmidtResearch to improve ShakeAlert earthquake early warning products and their utility
Earthquake early warning (EEW) is the rapid detection of an earthquake and issuance of an alert or notification to people and vulnerable systems likely to experience potentially damaging ground shaking. The level of ground shaking that is considered damaging is defined by the specific application; for example, manufacturing equipment may experience damage at a lower intensity ground shaking than wAuthorsElizabeth S. Cochran, Brad T. Aagaard, Richard M. Allen, Jennifer Andrews, Annemarie S. Baltay, Andrew J. Barbour, Paul Bodin, Benjamin A. Brooks, Angela Chung, Brendan W. Crowell, Doug Given, Thomas C. Hanks, J. Renate Hartog, Egill Hauksson, Thomas H. Heaton, Sara McBride, Men-Andrin Meier, Diego Melgar, Sarah E. Minson, Jessica R. Murray, Jennifer A. Strauss, Douglas ToomeyThe limits of earthquake early warning: Timeliness of ground motion estimates
The basic physics of earthquakes is such that strong ground motion cannot be expected from an earthquake unless the earthquake itself is very close or has grown to be very large. We use simple seismological relationships to calculate the minimum time that must elapse before such ground motion can be expected at a distance from the earthquake, assuming that the earthquake magnitude is not predictabAuthorsSarah E. Minson, Men-Andrin Meier, Annemarie S. Baltay, Thomas C. Hanks, Elizabeth S. CochranLeveraging geodetic data to reduce losses from earthquakes
Seismic hazard assessments that are based on a variety of data and the best available science, coupled with rapid synthesis of real-time information from continuous monitoring networks to guide post-earthquake response, form a solid foundation for effective earthquake loss reduction. With this in mind, the Earthquake Hazards Program (EHP) of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Natural Hazards MissioAuthorsJessica R. Murray, Evelyn A. Roeloffs, Benjamin A. Brooks, John O. Langbein, William S. Leith, Sarah E. Minson, Jerry L. Svarc, Wayne R. ThatcherCompositional variations in sands of the Bagnold Dunes, Gale Crater, Mars, from visible-shortwave infrared spectroscopy and comparison with ground truth from the Curiosity Rover
During its ascent up Mount Sharp, the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover traversed the Bagnold Dune Field. We model sand modal mineralogy and grain size at four locations near the rover traverse, using orbital shortwave infrared single scattering albedo spectra and a Markov-Chain Monte Carlo implementation of Hapke's radiative transfer theory to fully constrain uncertainties and permitted solAuthorsMathieu G.A. Lapotre, B. L. Ehlmann, Sarah E. Minson, R. E. Arvidson, F. Ayoub, A. A. Fraeman, R. C. Ewing, N. T. BridgesBuried shallow fault slip from the South Napa earthquake revealed by near-field geodesy
Earthquake-related fault slip in the upper hundreds of meters of Earth’s surface has remained largely unstudied because of challenges measuring deformation in the near field of a fault rupture. We analyze centimeter-scale accuracy mobile laser scanning (MLS) data of deformed vine rows within ±300 m of the principal surface expression of the M (magnitude) 6.0 2014 South Napa earthquake. Rather thanAuthorsBenjamin A. Brooks, Sarah E. Minson, Craig L. Glennie, Johanna Nevitt, Timothy E. Dawson, Ron S. Rubin, Todd Ericksen, David A. Lockner, Kenneth W. Hudnut, Victoria E. Langenheim, Andrew Lutz, Jessica R. Murray, David P. Schwartz, Dana ZacconeCombining multiple earthquake models in real time for earthquake early warning
The ultimate goal of earthquake early warning (EEW) is to provide local shaking information to users before the strong shaking from an earthquake reaches their location. This is accomplished by operating one or more real‐time analyses that attempt to predict shaking intensity, often by estimating the earthquake’s location and magnitude and then predicting the ground motion from that point source.AuthorsSarah E. Minson, Stephen Wu, James L Beck, Thomas H. HeatonFinite‐fault Bayesian inversion of teleseismic body waves
Inverting geophysical data has provided fundamental information about the behavior of earthquake rupture. However, inferring kinematic source model parameters for finite‐fault ruptures is an intrinsically underdetermined problem (the problem of nonuniqueness), because we are restricted to finite noisy observations. Although many studies use least‐squares techniques to make the finite‐fault problemAuthorsBrandon Clayton, Stephen H. Hartzell, Morgan P. Moschetti, Sarah E. Minson - News