The Queen Charlotte Fault (QCF) is a major strike-slip fault that forms the boundary between the Pacific and North American plates from 51° to 58° N. Near 53.2° N, the angle of oblique convergence predicted by the Mid-Ocean Ridge VELocity (MORVEL) interplate pole of rotation decreases from >15° in the...
The Queen Charlotte fault (QCF) is a dextral transform system located offshore of southeastern Alaska and western Canada, accommodating ∼4.4 cm/yr of relative motion between the Pacific and North American plates. Oblique convergence along the fault increases southward, and how this convergence is accommodated is still debated. Using seismic reflection...
The 2014 Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities (WGCEP 2014) presents time-dependent earthquake probabilities for the third Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast (UCERF3). Building on the UCERF3 time-independent model published previously, renewal models are utilized to represent elastic-rebound-implied probabilities. A new methodology has been developed that solves applicability issues in...
The 2014 Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities
(WGCEP14) present the time-independent component of the Uniform California
Earthquake Rupture Forecast, Version 3 (UCERF3), which provides authoritative
estimates of the magnitude, location, and time-averaged frequency of potentially
damaging earthquakes in California. The primary achievements have been to relax
fault segmentation and...
Maximum earthquake magnitude (m[subscript x]) is a critical parameter in seismic
hazard and risk analysis. However, some recent large earthquakes have shown that
most of the existing methods for estimating m[subscript x] are inadequate. Moreover, m[subscript x] itself is ill-defined because its meaning largely depends on the context, and it...
Several approaches to interpreting the Cascadia paleoseismic record are used to derive relationships between fault area, slip, and moment and to compare the results with the scaling relationships determined by Somerville et al. (2015) for recent subduction-zone events. In two models (CA12a and CA12b), taken from Goldfinger et al. (2012),...
This article summarizes the geotechnical effects of the 25 April 2015 M 7.8 Gorkha, Nepal, earthquake and aftershocks, as documented by a reconnaissance team that undertook a broad engineering and scientific assessment of the damage and collected perishable data for future analysis. Brief descriptions are provided of ground shaking, surface...
The Tertiary geologic evolution of the Oregon and Washington continental margin was molded by episodic periods of convergence between the Pacific oceanic plates and the North American plate. This margin is the site of a deep basin that is floored by Paleocene to lower Eocene oceanic crust and contains more...
Studies of active fault zones have flourished with the availability of high-resolution topographic data, particularly where airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) and structure from motion (SfM) data sets provide a means to remotely analyze submeter-scale fault geomorphology. To determine surface offset at a point along a strike-slip earthquake rupture,...
Marine renewable energy promises to assist in the effort to reduce
carbon emissions worldwide. As with any large-scale development in the marine
environment, however, it comes with uncertainty about potential environmental
impacts, most of which have not been adequately evaluated—in part because many of
the devices have yet to be...
A broad definition of forestry would include the study of trees, forests, and the habitat they provide as well as their use by people. Modern “science-based” forestry began in the nineteenth century, when Europeans looked for specialists who could address questions on wood supply and extraction both at home and...
A broad definition of forestry would include the study of trees and forests and their use by people. Modern, "science-based" forestry began in the nineteenth century when Europeans looked for specialists who could address questions on wood supply and extraction both at home and in their colonies. The threat of...
A broad definition of forestry would include the study of trees and forests and their use by people. Modern or science-based forestry began in the nineteenth century when Europeans looked to specialists to address questions of wood supply and its extraction from both their forests at home and their colonies....
Currently, Sierra Nevada forests have high levels of mortality caused by bark beetles infesting trees stressed by drought, fire, overly dense stands, and pathogens. Fuel loads and fire hazard are high. Past logging and fire exclusion practices are partially responsible for this situation. Mitigative restoration requires thinning overly dense stands,...
A broad definition of forestry would include the study of trees, forests, and the habitat they provide as well as their use by people. Modern, "science-based" forestry began in the nineteenth century when Europeans looked for specialists who could address questions on wood supply and extraction both at home and...
A broad definition of forestry would be the study of trees, forests, and their use by people. Modern science-based forestry is thought to have begun in the nineteenth century when Europeans looked to specialists to address questions of wood supply and extraction both in their forests at home and in...
The Amphipoda have been divided into the suborders Gammaridea,
Caprellidea, Cyamidea, Hyperiidea and Ingolfiellidea
(Schram 1986, Crustacea. Oxford University Press, New
York). However, Myers and Lowry (2003) regard the caprellids,
or skeleton shrimps, and the cyamids, or whale lice, as
families Caprellidae and Cyamidae. These distinctive groups
are covered in...
Our oceans surround us, and we depend upon them for food, transportation, and recreation. They affect us daily as they shape our climate and rattle our world with unexpected events. Current headlines indicate that they are in flux and perhaps in trouble. Coral reefs are dying due to rising ocean...
We present the geomorphology of the Eastern Samoa Volcanic Province, covering 28,446 km², and depths ranging from ~50-4000 m. A new compilation of available multibeam data reveals 51 previously undocumented seamounts, and delineates major submarine rift zones, eruptive centers, and volcanic plateaus. Moving from a regional to local scale, and...
This chapter addresses compost quality specifications, chemical and physical properties of compost, evaluation of compost maturity and stability, and variability in compost analytical data.
Increasing public awareness that the Cascadia subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest is capable of great earthquakes (magnitude 9 and greater) motivates the Cascadia Initiative, an ambitious onshore/offshore seismic and geodetic experiment that takes advantage of an amphibious array to study questions ranging from megathrust earthquakes, to volcanic arc structure,...
John Archibald Wheeler (09 July 1911- ) is a familiar name to physicists and historians of physics alike. Among his many contributions to the corpus of knowledge, in 1939 John Wheeler and Niels Bohr co-authored the first paper on the generalized mechanism of nuclear fission. Beyond that seminal work, Wheeler...
American meteorology was synonymous with subjective weather forecasting in the early twentieth century. Controlled by the Weather Bureau and with no academic programs of its own, the few hundred extant meteorologists had no standing in the scientific community. Until the American Meteorological Society was founded in 1919, meteorologists had no...
Trade in live plants has been recognized worldwide as an important invasion pathway for non-native plant pests. Such pests can have severe economic and ecological consequences. Nearly 70% of damaging forest insects and pathogens established in the US between 1860 and 2006 most likely entered on imported live plants. The...
NW Rota-1 is a submarine volcano in the Mariana volcanic arc that is notable as the site where underwater explosive eruptions were first witnessed in A. D. 2004. After years of continuous low-level eruptive activity, a major landslide occurred at NW Rota-1 in August 2009, triggered by an unusually large...
At global and regional scales, tree mortality rates are positively correlated with forest net primary productivity (NPP). Yet causes of the correlation are unknown, in spite of potentially profound implications for our understanding of environmental controls of forest structure and dynamics and, more generally, our understanding of broad-scale environmental controls...
In this dissertation, I posited the need to understand how an invented community (the Society for Creative Anachronism) constructs symbolic meaning in material objects and value systems. Using ethnographic methods, I focused on the Knights and their regalia as this is the most widely accepted material symbolism. People go to...
Characterizations of tsunami hazards
along the Cascadia subduction zone hinge
on uncertainties in megathrust rupture
models used for simulating tsunami inundation.
To explore these uncertainties, we
constructed 15 megathrust earthquake scenarios
using rupture models that supply the
initial conditions for tsunami simulations
at Bandon, Oregon. Tsunami inundation
varies with the...
• Premise of the Study: Tropical liana abundance has been increasing over the past 40 yr, which has been associated with reduced
rainfall. The proposed mechanism allowing lianas to thrive in dry conditions is deeper root systems than co-occurring trees,
although we know very little about the fundamental hydraulic physiology...
Intrinsic and extrinsic factors affect vital rates and population-level processes, and understanding these factors is paramount to devising successful management plans for wildlife species. For example, birds time migration in response, in part, to local and broadscale climate fluctuations to initiate breeding upon arrival to nesting territories, and prolonged inclement...
Many wind-power facilities in the United States have established effective monitoring programs to determine turbine-caused fatality rates of birds and bats, but estimating the number of fatalities of rare species poses special difficulties. The loss of even small numbers of individuals may adversely affect fragile populations, but typically, few (if...
Phenology is an integrative science that comprises the study of recurring biological activities or events. In an era of rapidly changing climate, the relationship between the timing of those events and environmental cues such as temperature, snowmelt, water availability, or day length are of particular interest. This article provides an...
The atomic age was enacted by many scientists as a way to realize health and human rights. Human rights were conceived in this context as rights to economic development, science education, and nuclear medicine. The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) acted hand in hand with UN agencies and educators...
Despite its importance to biodiversity and ecosystem function, patterns and drivers of regional scale variation in forest structure and development are poorly understood. We characterize structural variation, create a hierarchical classification of forest structure, and develop an empirically based framework for conceptualizing structural development from 11,091 plots across 25 million...
Because forest ecosystems have the capacity to store large quantities of carbon
(C), there is interest in managing forests to mitigate elevated CO[subscript 2] concentrations and
associated effects on the global climate. However, some mitigation techniques may contrast
with management strategies for other goals, such as maintaining and restoring biodiversity....
This dissertation focuses on the life of Dixy Lee Ray as it examines important developments in marine biology and biological oceanography during the mid twentieth century. In addition, Ray's key involvement in the public understanding of science movement of the 1950s and 1960s provides a larger social and cultural context...
Understanding the impact of humans on the environment has long been a topic of scholarly interest and debate. As environmental problems mount, accounts of historic ecological conditions and the factors of change become increasingly useful. This study considers competing schools of interpretation about human impacts on ecological landscapes and develops...
The occurrence of two wildfires separated by 31 yr in the chaparral-dominated Arroyo Seco watershed (293 km²) of California provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the effects of wildfire on suspended-sediment yield. Here, we compile discharge and suspended-sediment sampling data from before and after the fires and show that the...
In the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the association of high topography and low seismic
velocity in the underlying mantle suggests that recent changes in lithospheric buoyancy may have
been associated with surface uplift of the range. This paper examines the relationships among
late Cenozoic fluvial incision, channel steepness, and mantle velocity...
Pleistocene drainage basin integration led to progressive excavation of
Tertiary-Quaternary sedimentary basins along the Yellow River in the northeastern Tibetan
Plateau. Cosmogenic burial dating of ancestral river deposits and basin fill from two key
watershed divides confirms a fluvial connection between basins at 0.5–1.2 Ma, prior to excavation
by the...
Climate can affect population dynamics in indirect ways via nonadditive forcing by external variables on internal demographic rates. Current analytical techniques, employed in population ecology, fail to explicitly include nonadditive interactions between internal and external variables, and therefore cannot efficiently address indirect climate effects. Here, we present the results of...
William James came of age at a time of great social and intellectual change in the United States. During this period, new professional identities proliferated, and a new culture of professionalization developed with important ramifications for conceptions of individual and social identity. Professionalization was also closely related to key intellectual...