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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

Rapid Response Seafloor Seismology

Rapid Response Seafloor Seismology

Five Years After the Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence

Five Years After the Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence

USGS deploys “aftershock kits” to study Whitehouse Station earthquakes

USGS deploys “aftershock kits” to study Whitehouse Station earthquakes

Publications

Aftershock forecasting

Aftershocks can compound the impacts of a major earthquake, disrupting recovery efforts and potentially further damaging weakened buildings and infrastructure. Forecasts of the probability of aftershocks can therefore aid decision-making during earthquake response and recovery. Several countries issue authoritative aftershock forecasts. Most aftershock forecasts are based on simple statistical
Authors
Jeanne L. Hardebeck, Andrea L. Llenos, Andrew J. Michael, Morgan T. Page, Max Schneider, Nicholas van der Elst

Collision structures of the Prince William terrane and Chugach terrane docking along the Shumagin and Unimak convergent margins, Alaska, USA

Western Alaska’s convergent margins are composed of tectonostratigraphic terranes. On land, terrane assembly is recognized along boundaries or sutures between neighboring geologic elements with distinctly different origins. In marine areas where rock outcrops are covered by sediment, recognizing terrane sutures is problematic. A fault in seismic dip line 5 of the ALEUT project has been interpreted
Authors
Roland E. von Huene, John J. Miller

Global variability of the composition and temperature at the 410-km discontinuity from receiver function analysis of dense arrays

Seismic boundaries caused by phase transitions between olivine polymorphs in Earth's mantle provide thermal and compositional markers that inform mantle dynamics. Seismic studies of the mantle transition zone often use either global averaging with sparse arrays or regional sampling from a single dense array. The intermediate approach of this study utilizes many densely spaced seismic arrays distri
Authors
Margaret Elizabeth Glasgow, Hankui K. Zhang, Brandon Schmandt, Wen-Yi Zhou, Jinchi Zhang