Eldon Gath will be speaking at the University of Oregon (Eugene) Geology Department's Seminar Series on Jan 27 & 28.  He will be talking on the Neotectonics of the Panama Canal Zone and the Indenter Tectonics of the Santa Ana Mountains in Southern California.

Robert S. Yeats: Himalaya-Tibet plate boundary in Pakistan
Thomas K. Rockwell: Long-term patterns of earthquake recurrence from the San Jacinto and North Anatolian faults [more info]

Haiti Earthquake Little Surprise to Yeats - Scientific American Interview

The devastating earthquake that ripped through Haiti Tuesday, reportedly killing thousands, did not catch everyone by surprise.

In an interview last week for an unrelated story, Robert Yeats, a professor emeritus in geoscience at Oregon State University in Corvallis and co-author of a June 1989 article for Scientific American "Hidden Earthquakes," said that an imminent big west coast earthquake concerned him far less than a "big one" that might occur in Haiti, due to the large fault near the capital city of Port-au-Prince—and the poverty-driven low level of earthquake-preparedness there.  [more info pdf]

Tom Rockwell will be giving a Keynote Presentation on "TRENCHING TECHNIQUES IN PALEOSEISMOLOGY" at the 1st INQUA-IGCP-567 International Workshop on Earthquake Archaeology and Palaeoseismology, Baelo Claudia, Spain (Sept 7-12, 2009). [More workshop information]

Eldon Gath will be presenting "COSEISMIC OFFSET OF THE CAMINO DE CRUCES CONFIRMS THE PEDRO MIGUEL FAULT AS THE CAUSE OF THE AD 1621 PANAMÁ VIEJO EARTHQUAKE"  at the same conference. [View Paper] (pdf 3.19mb)

Eldon Gath will be presenting "THE SANTA ANA MOUNTAINS: INDENTER-DRIVEN SEISMOTECTONICS OF THE OC" at the Association of Engineering Geologists, Southern California Section's Monthly Meeting in North Hollywood, CA  August 11, 2009. Eldon Gath will also be presenting this at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Association of Engineering Geologists in South Lake Tahoe, CA, Sept 21-26, 2009. [view abstracts]

Eldon Gath and Rick Bennett will be heading to Panama Aug. 17-22, 2009 to present a workshop and training session on "CONTINUOUS GPS NETWORK OPERATIONS, DATA ANALYSIS, AND TECTONIC INTERPRETATION"  to the Autoridad del Canal de Panamá (ACP) engineering division. This workshop is a follow up to last year's GPS monument installation training workshop.

Danielle Verdugo completed FEMA's HAZUS Basic-MH and HAZUS Multi-hazard for Flood module courses this month at the Emergency Management Institute in Emmitsburg, MD.  She is now certified to run HAZUS models to generate loss estimations for flood, earthquake, and hurricane hazards. These estimations are used by counties and municipalities to aid in disaster management planning and mitigation.

Danielle Verdugo of ECI wins 2nd place for Best Overall Poster at Oregon AEG

Digging up earthquakes and slip rates along the Coyote Creek Fault, southern San Jacinto Fault Zone, California

The southern San Jacinto fault (SJF) zone is the most seismically active fault zone in the southern San Andreas fault system, with InSAR studies suggesting that the SJF accommodates 21 out of 45 mm/yr, or 45% of total Pacific-North American plate motion. This is also evidenced by a majority of SJF segments having ruptured historically, producing M6.5 or greater earthquakes, including the Coyote Creek fault, which ruptured in the 1968 magnitude 6.5 Borrego Mountain earthquake. While slip along most of the southern SJF zone is typically partitioned between several well-defined strands, the CCF is the only recognized fault strand conducting slip between multiple strands to its north and south. Thus, the CCF should be carrying a majority of the SJF slip and also be a major seismic hazard to rapidly developing exurban growth along its footprint. 

Previous studies have yielded little data in which to understand the future potential rupture hazard for the CCF. Therefore, we studied its past earthquake history by conducting a fault trenching study on the North Break of the 1968 CCF rupture. The trench, located in Benson Lake playa within the confines of the Ocotillo Wells Airport, was excavated across the mapped surface break from the 1968 earthquake. Surprisingly, there were only 4 distinguishably discrete events in the last 3000 years and a clear lack of organization in the fault zone, down to 3 meters beneath the playa surface. By comparison, the San Andreas fault, carrying a comparable amount of slip, ruptures on average every 200 years. A 3000 year-old C-14 dated sand blow was also exposed across the best expressed fault within the trench, and, although clearly faulted, is apparently offset less than a meter (the width of the trench). This suggests a sub-millimeter slip rate during the late Holocene. Although this fault sustained rupture in 1968, it apparently is not the main long-term active strand of the CCF and suggests a potential 19 mm/yr slip deficit for this portion of the southern SJFZ.  View Poster

When the Earth Moved Kashmir -Article featuring Bob Yeats of ECI

Anatomy of an Earthquake: Sudden and rapid releases of seismic stress can cause large earthquakes. And sometimes, an abrupt movement along a shallow fault can rupture the surface, as happened during the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. This surface rupture extended for seventy-five kilometers (forty-seven miles) and was a first among earthquakes in the Himalaya seismic zone. Robert Yeats, a geologist at Oregon State University, traveled to Pakistan after the Kashmir earthquake and witnessed the damage caused by the rupture firsthand. Yeats said, "In the known historic and recent records, not one of the earthquakes in the Himalaya has ever produced a surface rupture, not in Nepal, or India, or anywhere. This rupture was the first one." [more info]

ECI Researchers Complete Study of Fault Near Epicenter of July Mw 5.4 Chino Hills Earthquake.

This summer's Mw 5.4 earthquake centered beneath the Chino Hills alerted the Los Angeles metropolitan region to a seismic hazard in its back yard. The epicenter of the Chino Hills earthquake occurred near the poorly understood intersection between the Elsinore, Whittier and Chino Hills faults and several blind thrusts at depth. To help shed light on the earthquake potential of this area, Chris Madden and Robert Yeats of Earth Consultants International recently completed an investigation for the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program to characterize the earthquake history and structure of the Chino Fault. Paleoseismic trenches northwest of Prado Dam showed that the Chino fault has not ruptured in at least three thousand years, and perhaps not in the last 11 thousand years. Well data reviewed for the study suggests that the Chino fault may be a secondary structure that helps accommodate motion between the Elsinore and Whittier faults. Although the hazard posed by earthquakes on the Chino fault is relatively low compared to faults that rupture every couple hundred years like the San Andreas fault, the long quiescence in activity on the Chino fault suggests that it could be getting closer to rupture.

Chino Fault Paleoseismic Study .pdf (32mb)

Tania Gonzalez Project Consultant, Vice-President Earth Consultants International, Inc. speaks at SoCal HUG Meeting

A presentation given by Tania Gonzalez at the meeting that took place on 9/28/08 at Cal Poly Pomona was "Using HAZUS in Safety Elements and Disaster Mitigation Plans: A Few Case Histories Detailing Successes and Issues".

New Pakistani Paleoseismology School

Robert Yeats and Chris Madden will help lead a paleoseismology field school in Pakistan this October to help train young Pakistani scientists from industry and academia to characterize seismic hazards related to active faulting in the northwest Himalaya. Participants will trench the surface rupture of the 2005, Mw 7.6 Balakot-Bagh earthquake to determine the return period for similar earthquakes. The course is funded by the National Science Foundation through grants to California State University, Northridge and Oregon State University, where Robert Yeats is a faculty member emeritus. Chris is currently on leave from ECI to work on his PhD. at Oregon State University. His project will resolve the slip rate, recurrence interval, and kinematics of the Kalabagh fault in Pakistan, which crosses the Indus River near the site of the proposed Kalabagh hydroelectric dam.

Eldon M. Gath - Floyd T. Johnston Service Award

The award is presented to a Member for outstanding active and faithful service to AEG over a minimum period of 9 years to coincide with Floyd T. Johnston's tenure as Executive Director.

Floyd T. Johnston Award.pdf

Eldon Gath will be presenting "Quantitative Determination of the Pedro Miguel Fault's Slip Displacement and Slip Kinematics for Design of the Panama Canal Expansion Project's Borinquen Dam" at the Association of Engineering Geologist's Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Sept. 17-19, 2008

Tom Rockwell will be presenting "Paleoseismic Assessment of the Vilaria Segment of the Manteigas-Bragana Fault in Northeastern Portugal for the Proposed Sabor River Dam"& "Rupture Potential of the Left Abutment Fault, San Vicente Dam, San Diego County, California" at the Association of Engineering Geologist's Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Sept. 17-19, 2008.

View ECI Related Abstracts

View Entire AEG Abstracts

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, April 2008
Surface Rupture of the 2005 Kashmir, Pakistan Earthquake and Its Active Tectonic Implications. Click the pdf document below for the entire article.
Kashmir BSSA.pdf

4.7 Quake jostles Orange County

“This was a wake-up call that the Santa Ana Mountain system, combined with the Elsinore fault system,
represent a seismic threat to Orange County,” said Eldon Gath, the geologist who runs Earth Consutlants
International of Tustin.

Science Dude.pdf