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Earthquake Hazards Program

The USGS monitors and reports on earthquakes, assesses earthquake impacts and hazards, and conducts targeted research on the causes and effects of earthquakes. We undertake these activities as part of the larger National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP), a four-agency partnership established by Congress.

News

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Earthquakes can strike faster than a New York minute – What to do when the ground shakes...

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New USGS map shows where damaging earthquakes are most likely to occur in US

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Thirty years after the Northridge earthquake, new tools inform safety.

Publications

Induced seismicity strategic vision

Executive SummaryThe U.S. Geological Survey has a long history of contributions to the understanding and resolution of various scientific questions related to earthquakes associated with human activities, referred to as induced seismicity. Work started with the Rocky Mountain Arsenal studies in the 1960’s (Healy and others, 1968) when it was first discovered that fluid waste-disposal operations ca
Authors
Elizabeth S. Cochran, Justin L. Rubinstein, Andrew J. Barbour, J. Ole Kaven

Incorporating intensity distance attenuation into PLUM ground-motion-based earthquake early warning in the United States: The APPLES configuration

We develop Attenuated ProPagation of Local Earthquake Shaking (APPLES), a new configuration for the United States West Coast version of the Propagation of Local Undamped Motion (PLUM) earthquake early warning (EEW) algorithm that incorporates attenuation into its ground-motion prediction procedures. Under APPLES, instead of using a fixed radius to forward-predict observed peak ground shaking to th
Authors
Jessie K. Saunders, Elizabeth S. Cochran, Julian Bunn, Annemarie S. Baltay, Sarah E. Minson, Colin T O'Rourke

Fault activity in the San Gabriel Mountains, southern California, USA: Insights from landscape morphometrics, erosion rates, and fault-slip rates

Many studies use landscape form to determine spatial patterns of tectonic deformation, and these are particularly effective when paired with independent measures of rock uplift and erosion. Here, we use morphometric analyses and 10Be catchment-averaged erosion rates, together with reverse slip rates from the Sierra Madre−Cucamonga fault zone, to reveal patterns in uplift, erosion, and fault activi
Authors
Andrew Meredith, Devin McPhillips