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Search indexed USGS publications on groundwater, aquifers, geologic maps, mineral resources and earthquakes. Explore source records by subject and place.

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An interview with Karl Steinbrugge

For thirty years the name of Karl V. Steinbrugge has been synonymous with the Insurance Services Office in San Francisco. There he was in charge of their earthquake engineering and research activities for the United States, and his work included detailed engineering investigations of the probable earthquake damage to structures as well as studies of actual earthquake effects. trained as a civil and structural engineer, Steinbrugge was on faculty of the University of California at Berkeley for 28 years, retiring as a Professor of Structural Design. He has served on numerous national and international committees on earthquake hazards, and he is now a consulting structural engineer, specializing in earthquake hazard evaluation. At the present moment he is chairman of an independent panel of the Federal Emergency Management Agency that is reviewing the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program. Henry Spall recently asked Steinbrugge some questions about his long career.

Earthquake Information Bulletin (USGS)

Sir Harold Jeffreys

Sir Harold Jeffreys is a world authority in theoretical geophyiscs. hew as born in Northumbria (northeast of England) and educated at Armstrong College (now the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne) and Cambridge University. He is now a Senior Fellow of St.John's College, Cambridge. He has published over 300 scientific papers and is the author of 7 books, including Theory of Probability and Mathematical Physics (with his wife, Lady Bertha Swirles Jeffreys) . Sir Harold has made innumerable theoretical contributions to seismology. Many of these are documented in his book The Earth , which has been published in six editions. His papers have recently been collated by Gordon and Breach (Publishers) into six volumes, Collected Papers on Sir Harold Jeffreys on Geophyiscs and other Sciences. Some idea of the breadth of this research can be seen from the individual volume titles: "Theoretical and Observational Seismology," "Observational Seismology," "Gravity," "Dissipation of Energy and Thermal History," "Astronomy and Geophysics," and "Matematics, Probability and Miscellaneious Other Sciences."

Earthquake Information Bulletin (USGS)

Seismology in South America; an interview with Alberto Giesecke

Dr. Alberto A. Giesecke is head of the Instituto Geofisico del Peru, in Lima, Peru, and Director of Centro Regional de Sismologia para America del Sur (CERESIS). The center is dedicated to the coordination and promotion of earthquake hazard mitigation. Dr. Giesecke was President of the National Research Council of Peru and currently is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Institute for Industrial Technological Research and Standards and of the National Institute for Research and Training in Telecommunications. He presided over the Organizing Committee for the General Assemblies of the International Association for Seismology and Physics of the Earth's interor and the International Union for Radio Science held in Lima, Peru, in 1973 and 1975, respectively.

Earthquake Information Bulletin (USGS)

Seismology at the Australian National University; an interview with Anton L. Hales

Dr. Anton L. Hales is a leading seismologist who has just retired as Director of the Research School of Earth Sciences at the Australian National University (ANU), Canberra. Prior to that, he headed the Geosciences Division at the University of Texas at Dallas, and, before that, he was Director of the Bernard Price Institute of Geophysical Research at the University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, South Africa. he is about to step down as President of the International Geodynamics Commission. Dr. Hales' research has involved marine geophysics, the travel times of seismic waves, and the structure of the Earth's crust and upper mantle.

Earthquake Information Bulletin (USGS)

Charles F. Richter; an interview

Charles F. Richter, renowned seismologist, is a professor emeritus at the California Institue of techonology (Caltech). He is best known to the public for the Richter magnitude scale; but he is equally recognized in the scientific community for many other contributions to seismology including his books Elementary Seismology (1958) and Seismicity of the Earth (coauthored in 1954 with Beno Gutenberg).

Earthquake Information Bulletin (USGS)

Predicting earthquakes along the major plate tectonic boundaries in the Pacific

In an article in the last issue of the Earthquake Information Bulletin ("Earthquakes and Plate Tectonics," by Henry Spall), we saw how 90 percent of the world's earthquakes occur at the margins of the Earth's major crustal plates. however, when we look at the distribution of earthquakes in detail, we see that a number of nearly aseismic regions, or seismic gaps, can be found along the present-day plate boundaries. Why is this? And can we regard these areas as being more likely to be the sites for future larger earthquakes than those segments of the plate boundaries that have ruptured recently.

Earthquake Information Bulletin (USGS)

Gilbert White talks about natural hazards

Dr. Gilbert White is Director of the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he is responsible for natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center supported by the National Science Foundation. He served in the Executive Office of the president in 1941-42, on the Federal Flood Control Policy Task Force in 1964-65, and on the U.S Geological Survey Advisory Panel on Earthquake Studies. Dr. White has authored five books on the social and economic aspects of natural resources, including water supply and river development, and on floods and other natural hazards.

Earthquake Information Bulletin (USGS)

Clarence Allen talks about the responsibilities in earthquake prediction

Dr. Clarence R. Allen is professor of geology and geophysics at the California Institute of Technology. He has been a member of advisory panels to the Executive Office of the President, National Academy of Sciences, National Science Foundation, U.S Geological Survey, UNESCO, California State Mining and Geology Board, and the California Department of Water Resources. Dr. Allen has been President of both the Geological Society of America and the Seismological Society of America (SSA). The title of this interview is based on his presidential address to the SSA in 1976.

Earthquake Information Bulletin (USGS)

Introductory remarks on NEIS from Lou Pakiser

Lou Pakiser is Chief of the Branch of Seismicity and Earth Structure of the U.S Geological Survey at Denver, Colo. He is responsible for managing the National Earthquake Information Service (NEIS), the Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory, other U.S Seismic observatories, and a reserach program related to global seismology.

Earthquake Information Bulletin (USGS)

Earthquakes and plate tectonics

The world's earthquakes are not randomly distributed over the Earth's surface. They tend to be concentrated in narrow zones. Why is this? And why are volcanoes and mountain ranges also found in these zones too? An explanation is to be found in plate tectonics, a concept which has revolutionized thinking in the Earth sciences in the last 10 years. The theory of plate tectonics combines many of the ideas about continental drift (originally proposed in 1912 by Alfred Wegener in Germany) and sea-floor spreading (suggested originally by Harry Hess of Princeton University).

Earthquake Information Bulletin (USGS)

Jupiter and the Voyager mission

In 1977, the United States launched two unmanned Voyager spacecraft that were to take part in an extensive reconnaissance of the outer planets over a 12-year period visiting the environs of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Their first encounter was with the complex Jupiter planetary system 400 million miles away. Sweeping by Jupiter and its five moons in 1979, the two spacecraft have sent back to Earth an enormous amount of data that will prove to be vital in understanding our solar system. Voyager 1 is scheduled to fly past Saturn on November 13 of this year; Voyager 2, in August of the following year.

Earthquake Information Bulletin (USGS)

Seismicity and earthquake hazards of the Wasatch Front, Utah

The impressive topographic break at the base of the Wasatch Range immediately east of Salt Lake City, Utah, marks the location where Mormon colonizer Brigham Young said in 1847. "This is the place" Actually, "the place" is termed the Wasatch Front because the Wasatch Range to the east, which rises to heights of 3,600 m, fronts the valleys to the west. The densely settled Wasatch Front area has about 900,000 people, 80 percent of Utah's total population. This population is centered around Salt Lake City, a rapidly growing industrial and tourist center.

Utah

Records of prehistoric earthquakes in sedimentary deposits in lakes

Historic records of earthquakes are too short to allow a true assessment of their recurrence intervals. Methods are needed, therefore, that will enable the seismicity of an area to be evaluated beyond the limit of historic records. One place where a record of ancient seismic activity might be preserved is in lake sediments. Strong earthquakes often cause a phenomenon in water-saturated sediments known as liquefaction. The seismic shaking tends to reorient the sediment grains into a more compact arrangement. This usually means that the sediment liquefies and is redeposited in a smaller volume; there is an accompanying explusion of water and, in cases of severe shaking, sediment-laden water. During a strong earthquake, deformation due to liquefaction may occur in the upper layers of lake sediment. If this deformation is preserved without further deformation as new layers of sediment are deposited in the lake and if one could later find and identify these layers, one would then have a record of prehistoric earthquakes in the lake beds.

Earthquake Information Bulletin (USGS)

Searching for prehistoric earthquakes in lake sediments

How often do major earthquakes occur? Do they follow regular patterns of recurrence, and if so, what is the length of the recurrence interval? These questions are of obvious importance to populations located in regions where earthquakes are a commonplace occurrence. They are also relevant questions in regions that are for the most part seismically inactive but that have experienced anomalous earthquakes of destructive force one or more times in recorded history. Also, what about areas that have never experienced an earthquake in historic times? Human history is short when compared to the geologic time scale. Is it possible that places which we regard as seismically inactive might actually have experienced a major earthquake in the recent geologic past? Historic records of earthquakes are too short to allow a true assessment of recurrence intervals; therefore, a method is needed that will enable the seismic history of a region to be exteneded beyond the limit of historic time.

Earthquake Information Bulletin (USGS)