William Barnhart, Ph.D.
Dr. Barnhart is a remote sensing geodesist and assistant coordinator in the USGS, based in Golden, CO. He helps to provide oversight of the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) and supports earthquake response and research efforts within the USGS and ANSS.
William Barnhart is an assistant coordinator within the Earthquake Hazards Program (EHP) where he helps to provide oversight of the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) – the cooperative of federal, state, and university partners that provide authoritative earthquake information in the United States and US Territories – and support other management activities within EHP. In addition to coordination activities, Dr. Barnhart is a remote sensing geodesist who uses satellite imagery to characterize global earthquakes for both operational earthquake response and research activities.
Barnhart joined the USGS EHP in 2020 after spending five years as an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Iowa where his teaching and research focused on remote sensing, tectonic and induced earthquake processes, and seismotectonic processes in continental plate boundaries. Prior to that, Barnhart was a USGS Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) within the USGS’s Geologic Hazards Science Center.
Professional Experience
2020-Present Assistant Coordinator, USGS Earthquake Hazards Program
2015-2020 Assistant Professor, University of Iowa, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
2013-2015 Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow, USGS National Earthquake Information Center
Education and Certifications
Ph.D. 2013, Cornell University, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Ithaca, NY
B.S. 2008, Washington and Lee University, Department of Geology, Lexington, VA
Science and Products
Supporting Data and Models for Characterizing the February 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye, Earthquake Sequence
This data release pertains to the February 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye earthquake sequence and complements the following publication:
Goldberg, D.E. et al. (2023) Rapid Characterization of the February 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye, Earthquake Sequence, The Seismic Record. (xx), 1, doi: 10.1785/0320230009.
Child Items "2023-02-06 Mw7.8 Pazarcık Earthquake Finite Fault Data and Model" and "2023-02-
Fault Rupture Mapping of the 6 February 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye, Earthquake Sequence from Satellite Data (ver. 1.1, February 2024)
This data release contains two datasets that depict fault rupture on the East Anatolian and Çardak faults resulting from the Mw7.8 and Mw7.5 earthquakes in Turkey (Türkiye). It contains two additional datasets that describe satellite imagery coverage and observation gaps. The 6 February 2023 earthquake sequence caused >500 km of combined surface rupture on the primarily left-lateral strike-slip Ea
Regional and Teleseismic Observations for Finite-Fault Product
This data release complements the following publication: Goldberg, D. E., P. Koch, D. Melgar, S. Riquelme, and W. L. Yeck (2022). Beyond the Teleseism: Introducing Regional Seismic and Geodetic Data into Routine USGS Finite-Fault Modeling, Seismol. Res. Lett. XX, 1–16, doi: 10.1785/0220220047. Rapid finite-fault models are published by the US Geological Survey (USGS) National Earthquake Informati
Displacement and strain field from the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes derived from analysis of WorldView optical satellite imagery (ver. 2.0, May 2021)
This Data Release contains co-seismic horizontal and vertical displacements of the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes derived from sub-pixel cross correlation of WorldView satellite optical imagery. Additionally, the dataset contains the 2-dimensionsal (2D) and 3-dimensional (3D) surface strain fields, inverted from the surface displacements. Associated publication: Barnhart, W.D., Gold, R.D., Hollingsw
Coseismic surface displacement and fault zone width measurements in the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes from WorldView optical image correlation
(1) Lateral displacement measurements made based on optical image correlation results from WorldView satellite images along with (2) local and regional rupture width measurements for the 2019 Mw6.4 and Mw7.1 Ridgecrest earthquakes, CA. These datasets are associated with the publication: Gold, R. D., DuRoss, C. B., & Barnhart, W. D., 2021, Coseismic surface displacement in the 2019 Ridgecrest ear
2016 Mw 6.0 Petermann Ranges earthquake, Australia: Pre- and post-earthquake digital elevation models
We generated digital elevation models (DEMs) using pre- and post-event in-track stereo 0.5 m resolution panchromatic Worldview 1 and 2 images (2019, DigitalGlobe) using the Surface Extraction from TIN-based Searchspace Minimization (SETSM) software [Noh and Howat, 2015] running on the University of Iowa Argon supercomputer (Table S1). The post-event DEMs exhibit along-track striping artifacts comm
Filter Total Items: 14
Rapid Source Characterization of the 2023 Mw 6.8 Al Haouz, Morocco, Earthquake
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) estimates source characteristics of significant damaging earthquakes, aiming to place events within their seismotectonic framework. Contextualizing the 8 September 2023, Mw 6.8 Al Haouz, Morocco, earthquake is challenging, because it occurred in an enigmatic region of active surface faulting, and low seismicity yet pro
Authors
William L. Yeck, Alexandra Elise Hatem, Dara Elyse Goldberg, William D. Barnhart, Jessica Ann Thompson Jobe, David R. Shelly, Antonio Villasenor, Harley Benz, Paul S. Earle
Rapid surface rupture mapping from satellite data: The 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Turkey (Türkiye), earthquake sequence
The 6 February 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Turkey (Türkiye), earthquake sequence produced > 500 km of surface rupture primarily on the left‐lateral East Anatolian (~345 km) and Çardak (~175 km) faults. Constraining the length and magnitude of surface displacement on the causative faults is critical for loss estimates, recovery efforts, rapid identification of impacted infrastructure, and fault displacemen
Authors
Nadine G. Reitman, Richard W. Briggs, William D. Barnhart, Alexandra Elise Hatem, Jessica Ann Thompson Jobe, Christopher DuRoss, Ryan D. Gold, John David Mejstrik, Camille Collett, Richard D Koehler, Sinan Akçiz
Rapid characterization of the February 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Turkey, earthquake sequence
The 6 February 2023 Mw 7.8 Pazarcık and subsequent Mw 7.5 Elbistan earthquakes generated strong ground shaking that resulted in catastrophic human and economic loss across south‐central Türkiye and northwest Syria. The rapid characterization of the earthquakes, including their location, size, fault geometries, and slip kinematics, is critical to estimate the impact of significant seismic events.
Authors
Dara Elyse Goldberg, Tuncay Taymaz, Nadine G. Reitman, Alexandra Elise Hatem, Seda Yolsal-Çevikbilen, William D. Barnhart, Tahir Serkan Irmak, David J. Wald, Taylan Öcalan, William L. Yeck, Berkan Özkan, Jessica Ann Thompson Jobe, David R. Shelly, Eric M. Thompson, Christopher DuRoss, Paul S. Earle, Richard W. Briggs, Harley M. Benz, Ceyhun Erman, Ali Hasan Doğan, Cemali Altuntaş
Coseismic surface displacement in the 2019 ridgecrest earthquakes: Comparison of field measurements and optical image correlation results
A fundamental topic in earthquake studies is understanding the extent to which fault rupture at the surface is localized on primary fault strands as opposed to distributed tens to hundreds of meters away from primary ruptures through off‐fault deformation (OFD) via a combination of discrete secondary faulting and bulk deformation. The 2019 Ridgecrest, CA Mw6.4 and Mw7.1 earthquakes provide an oppo
Authors
Ryan D. Gold, Christopher DuRoss, William D. Barnhart
Localized fault-zone dilatancy and surface inelasticity of the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes
Earthquakes produce a spectrum of elastic and inelastic deformation processes that are reflected across various length and time scales. While elasticity has long dominated research assumptions in active tectonics, increasing interest has focused on the inelastic characteristics of earthquakes, particularly those of the surface fault rupture zone itself, and how they relate to ground rupture hazard
Authors
William D. Barnhart, Ryan D. Gold, James Hollingsworth
Surface rupture and distributed deformation revealed by optical satellite imagery: The intraplate 2016 Mw 6.0 Petermann Ranges earthquake, Australia
High-resolution optical satellite imagery is used to quantify vertical surface deformation associated with the intraplate 20 May 2016 Mw 6.0 Petermann Ranges earthquake, Northern Territory, Australia. The 21 ╓ 1 km long NW-trending rupture resulted from reverse motion on a northeast-dipping fault. Vertical surface offsets of up to 0.7 ╓ 0.1 m distributed across a 0.5-to-1 km wide deformation zone
Authors
Ryan D. Gold, Dan Clark, William D. Barnhart, Tamarah King, Mark Quigley, Richard W. Briggs
Vertical coseismic offsets from differential high-resolution stereogrammetric DSMs: The 2013 Baluchistan, Pakistan earthquake
The recent proliferation of high-resolution (< 3-m spatial resolution) digital topography datasets opens a spectrum of geodetic applications in differential topography, including the quantification of coseismic vertical displacement fields. Most investigations of coseismic vertical displacements to date rely, in part, on pre- or post-event lidar surveys that are intractable or non-existent in many
Authors
William D. Barnhart, Ryan D. Gold, Hannah N. Shea, Katherine E. Peterson, Richard W. Briggs, David J. Harbor
The 12 November 2017 Mw 7.3 Ezgeleh–Sarpolzahab (Iran) earthquake and active tectonics of the Lurestan arc
The 12 November 2017 Mw 7.3 Ezgeleh‐Sarpolzahab earthquake is the largest instrumentally recorded earthquake in the Zagros Simply Folded Belt by a factor of ∼10 in seismic moment. Exploiting local, regional, and teleseismic data and synthetic aperture radar interferometry imagery, we characterize the rupture, its aftershock sequence, background seismicity, and regional tectonics. The mainshock rup
Authors
Edwin Nissen, Abdolreza Ghods, Ezgi Karasözen, John R. Elliott, Wiliam D. Barnhart, Eric A. Bergman, Gavin P. Hayes, Mohammadreza Jamal-Reyhani, Majid Nemati, Fengzhou Tan, Wathiq Abdulnaby, Harley M. Benz, Mohammad P. Shahvar, Morteza Talebian, Ling Chen
Induced earthquake and liquefaction hazards in Oklahoma, USA: Constraints from InSAR
Oklahoma experienced three earthquakes of Mw5.0 or greater in 2016: the 13-Feb. Fairview earthquake (Mw5.1), the 03-Sep. Pawnee earthquake (Mw5.8), and the 07-Nov. Cushing earthquake (Mw5.0). These events are the first earthquakes in the state exceeding Mw5.0 since the 2011 Mw5.7 Prague earthquake and likely result from wide-scale deep fluid-injection. We use interferometric synthetic aperture rad
Authors
William D. Barnhart, William L. Yeck, Daniel E. McNamara
Integrated geophysical characteristics of the 2015 Illapel, Chile, earthquake
On 16 September 2015, a Mw 8.3 earthquake ruptured the subduction zone offshore of Illapel, Chile, generating an aftershock sequence with 14 Mw 6.0–7.0 events. A double source W phase moment tensor inversion consists of a Mw 7.2 subevent and the main Mw 8.2 phase. We determine two slip models for the mainshock, one using teleseismic broadband waveforms and the other using static GPS and InSAR surf
Authors
Matthew W. Herman, Jennifer Nealy, William L. Yeck, William D. Barnhart, Gavin P. Hayes, Kevin P. Furlong, Harley M. Benz
The 2008 Wells, Nevada earthquake sequence: Source constraints using calibrated multiple event relocation and InSAR
The 2008 Wells, NV earthquake represents the largest domestic event in the conterminous U.S. outside of California since the October 1983 Borah Peak earthquake in southern Idaho. We present an improved catalog, magnitude complete to 1.6, of the foreshock-aftershock sequence, supplementing the current U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Preliminary Determination of Epicenters (PDE) catalog with 1,928 wel
Authors
Jennifer Nealy, Harley M. Benz, Gavin P. Hayes, Eric Berman, William D. Barnhart
Oklahoma experiences largest earthquake during ongoing regional wastewater injection hazard mitigation efforts
The 3 September 2016, Mw 5.8 Pawnee earthquake was the largest recorded earthquake in the state of Oklahoma. Seismic and geodetic observations of the Pawnee sequence, including precise hypocenter locations and moment tensor modeling, shows that the Pawnee earthquake occurred on a previously unknown left-lateral strike-slip basement fault that intersects the mapped right-lateral Labette fault zone.
Authors
William L. Yeck, Gavin P. Hayes, Daniel E. McNamara, Justin L. Rubinstein, William D. Barnhart, Paul S. Earle, Harley M. Benz
Science and Products
- Data
Supporting Data and Models for Characterizing the February 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye, Earthquake Sequence
This data release pertains to the February 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye earthquake sequence and complements the following publication: Goldberg, D.E. et al. (2023) Rapid Characterization of the February 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye, Earthquake Sequence, The Seismic Record. (xx), 1, doi: 10.1785/0320230009. Child Items "2023-02-06 Mw7.8 Pazarcık Earthquake Finite Fault Data and Model" and "2023-02-Fault Rupture Mapping of the 6 February 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Türkiye, Earthquake Sequence from Satellite Data (ver. 1.1, February 2024)
This data release contains two datasets that depict fault rupture on the East Anatolian and Çardak faults resulting from the Mw7.8 and Mw7.5 earthquakes in Turkey (Türkiye). It contains two additional datasets that describe satellite imagery coverage and observation gaps. The 6 February 2023 earthquake sequence caused >500 km of combined surface rupture on the primarily left-lateral strike-slip EaRegional and Teleseismic Observations for Finite-Fault Product
This data release complements the following publication: Goldberg, D. E., P. Koch, D. Melgar, S. Riquelme, and W. L. Yeck (2022). Beyond the Teleseism: Introducing Regional Seismic and Geodetic Data into Routine USGS Finite-Fault Modeling, Seismol. Res. Lett. XX, 1–16, doi: 10.1785/0220220047. Rapid finite-fault models are published by the US Geological Survey (USGS) National Earthquake InformatiDisplacement and strain field from the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes derived from analysis of WorldView optical satellite imagery (ver. 2.0, May 2021)
This Data Release contains co-seismic horizontal and vertical displacements of the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes derived from sub-pixel cross correlation of WorldView satellite optical imagery. Additionally, the dataset contains the 2-dimensionsal (2D) and 3-dimensional (3D) surface strain fields, inverted from the surface displacements. Associated publication: Barnhart, W.D., Gold, R.D., HollingswCoseismic surface displacement and fault zone width measurements in the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes from WorldView optical image correlation
(1) Lateral displacement measurements made based on optical image correlation results from WorldView satellite images along with (2) local and regional rupture width measurements for the 2019 Mw6.4 and Mw7.1 Ridgecrest earthquakes, CA. These datasets are associated with the publication: Gold, R. D., DuRoss, C. B., & Barnhart, W. D., 2021, Coseismic surface displacement in the 2019 Ridgecrest ear2016 Mw 6.0 Petermann Ranges earthquake, Australia: Pre- and post-earthquake digital elevation models
We generated digital elevation models (DEMs) using pre- and post-event in-track stereo 0.5 m resolution panchromatic Worldview 1 and 2 images (2019, DigitalGlobe) using the Surface Extraction from TIN-based Searchspace Minimization (SETSM) software [Noh and Howat, 2015] running on the University of Iowa Argon supercomputer (Table S1). The post-event DEMs exhibit along-track striping artifacts comm - Publications
Filter Total Items: 14
Rapid Source Characterization of the 2023 Mw 6.8 Al Haouz, Morocco, Earthquake
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) estimates source characteristics of significant damaging earthquakes, aiming to place events within their seismotectonic framework. Contextualizing the 8 September 2023, Mw 6.8 Al Haouz, Morocco, earthquake is challenging, because it occurred in an enigmatic region of active surface faulting, and low seismicity yet proAuthorsWilliam L. Yeck, Alexandra Elise Hatem, Dara Elyse Goldberg, William D. Barnhart, Jessica Ann Thompson Jobe, David R. Shelly, Antonio Villasenor, Harley Benz, Paul S. EarleRapid surface rupture mapping from satellite data: The 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Turkey (Türkiye), earthquake sequence
The 6 February 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Turkey (Türkiye), earthquake sequence produced > 500 km of surface rupture primarily on the left‐lateral East Anatolian (~345 km) and Çardak (~175 km) faults. Constraining the length and magnitude of surface displacement on the causative faults is critical for loss estimates, recovery efforts, rapid identification of impacted infrastructure, and fault displacemenAuthorsNadine G. Reitman, Richard W. Briggs, William D. Barnhart, Alexandra Elise Hatem, Jessica Ann Thompson Jobe, Christopher DuRoss, Ryan D. Gold, John David Mejstrik, Camille Collett, Richard D Koehler, Sinan AkçizRapid characterization of the February 2023 Kahramanmaraş, Turkey, earthquake sequence
The 6 February 2023 Mw 7.8 Pazarcık and subsequent Mw 7.5 Elbistan earthquakes generated strong ground shaking that resulted in catastrophic human and economic loss across south‐central Türkiye and northwest Syria. The rapid characterization of the earthquakes, including their location, size, fault geometries, and slip kinematics, is critical to estimate the impact of significant seismic events.AuthorsDara Elyse Goldberg, Tuncay Taymaz, Nadine G. Reitman, Alexandra Elise Hatem, Seda Yolsal-Çevikbilen, William D. Barnhart, Tahir Serkan Irmak, David J. Wald, Taylan Öcalan, William L. Yeck, Berkan Özkan, Jessica Ann Thompson Jobe, David R. Shelly, Eric M. Thompson, Christopher DuRoss, Paul S. Earle, Richard W. Briggs, Harley M. Benz, Ceyhun Erman, Ali Hasan Doğan, Cemali AltuntaşCoseismic surface displacement in the 2019 ridgecrest earthquakes: Comparison of field measurements and optical image correlation results
A fundamental topic in earthquake studies is understanding the extent to which fault rupture at the surface is localized on primary fault strands as opposed to distributed tens to hundreds of meters away from primary ruptures through off‐fault deformation (OFD) via a combination of discrete secondary faulting and bulk deformation. The 2019 Ridgecrest, CA Mw6.4 and Mw7.1 earthquakes provide an oppoAuthorsRyan D. Gold, Christopher DuRoss, William D. BarnhartLocalized fault-zone dilatancy and surface inelasticity of the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes
Earthquakes produce a spectrum of elastic and inelastic deformation processes that are reflected across various length and time scales. While elasticity has long dominated research assumptions in active tectonics, increasing interest has focused on the inelastic characteristics of earthquakes, particularly those of the surface fault rupture zone itself, and how they relate to ground rupture hazardAuthorsWilliam D. Barnhart, Ryan D. Gold, James HollingsworthSurface rupture and distributed deformation revealed by optical satellite imagery: The intraplate 2016 Mw 6.0 Petermann Ranges earthquake, Australia
High-resolution optical satellite imagery is used to quantify vertical surface deformation associated with the intraplate 20 May 2016 Mw 6.0 Petermann Ranges earthquake, Northern Territory, Australia. The 21 ╓ 1 km long NW-trending rupture resulted from reverse motion on a northeast-dipping fault. Vertical surface offsets of up to 0.7 ╓ 0.1 m distributed across a 0.5-to-1 km wide deformation zoneAuthorsRyan D. Gold, Dan Clark, William D. Barnhart, Tamarah King, Mark Quigley, Richard W. BriggsVertical coseismic offsets from differential high-resolution stereogrammetric DSMs: The 2013 Baluchistan, Pakistan earthquake
The recent proliferation of high-resolution (< 3-m spatial resolution) digital topography datasets opens a spectrum of geodetic applications in differential topography, including the quantification of coseismic vertical displacement fields. Most investigations of coseismic vertical displacements to date rely, in part, on pre- or post-event lidar surveys that are intractable or non-existent in manyAuthorsWilliam D. Barnhart, Ryan D. Gold, Hannah N. Shea, Katherine E. Peterson, Richard W. Briggs, David J. HarborThe 12 November 2017 Mw 7.3 Ezgeleh–Sarpolzahab (Iran) earthquake and active tectonics of the Lurestan arc
The 12 November 2017 Mw 7.3 Ezgeleh‐Sarpolzahab earthquake is the largest instrumentally recorded earthquake in the Zagros Simply Folded Belt by a factor of ∼10 in seismic moment. Exploiting local, regional, and teleseismic data and synthetic aperture radar interferometry imagery, we characterize the rupture, its aftershock sequence, background seismicity, and regional tectonics. The mainshock rupAuthorsEdwin Nissen, Abdolreza Ghods, Ezgi Karasözen, John R. Elliott, Wiliam D. Barnhart, Eric A. Bergman, Gavin P. Hayes, Mohammadreza Jamal-Reyhani, Majid Nemati, Fengzhou Tan, Wathiq Abdulnaby, Harley M. Benz, Mohammad P. Shahvar, Morteza Talebian, Ling ChenInduced earthquake and liquefaction hazards in Oklahoma, USA: Constraints from InSAR
Oklahoma experienced three earthquakes of Mw5.0 or greater in 2016: the 13-Feb. Fairview earthquake (Mw5.1), the 03-Sep. Pawnee earthquake (Mw5.8), and the 07-Nov. Cushing earthquake (Mw5.0). These events are the first earthquakes in the state exceeding Mw5.0 since the 2011 Mw5.7 Prague earthquake and likely result from wide-scale deep fluid-injection. We use interferometric synthetic aperture radAuthorsWilliam D. Barnhart, William L. Yeck, Daniel E. McNamaraIntegrated geophysical characteristics of the 2015 Illapel, Chile, earthquake
On 16 September 2015, a Mw 8.3 earthquake ruptured the subduction zone offshore of Illapel, Chile, generating an aftershock sequence with 14 Mw 6.0–7.0 events. A double source W phase moment tensor inversion consists of a Mw 7.2 subevent and the main Mw 8.2 phase. We determine two slip models for the mainshock, one using teleseismic broadband waveforms and the other using static GPS and InSAR surfAuthorsMatthew W. Herman, Jennifer Nealy, William L. Yeck, William D. Barnhart, Gavin P. Hayes, Kevin P. Furlong, Harley M. BenzThe 2008 Wells, Nevada earthquake sequence: Source constraints using calibrated multiple event relocation and InSAR
The 2008 Wells, NV earthquake represents the largest domestic event in the conterminous U.S. outside of California since the October 1983 Borah Peak earthquake in southern Idaho. We present an improved catalog, magnitude complete to 1.6, of the foreshock-aftershock sequence, supplementing the current U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Preliminary Determination of Epicenters (PDE) catalog with 1,928 welAuthorsJennifer Nealy, Harley M. Benz, Gavin P. Hayes, Eric Berman, William D. BarnhartOklahoma experiences largest earthquake during ongoing regional wastewater injection hazard mitigation efforts
The 3 September 2016, Mw 5.8 Pawnee earthquake was the largest recorded earthquake in the state of Oklahoma. Seismic and geodetic observations of the Pawnee sequence, including precise hypocenter locations and moment tensor modeling, shows that the Pawnee earthquake occurred on a previously unknown left-lateral strike-slip basement fault that intersects the mapped right-lateral Labette fault zone.AuthorsWilliam L. Yeck, Gavin P. Hayes, Daniel E. McNamara, Justin L. Rubinstein, William D. Barnhart, Paul S. Earle, Harley M. Benz - News