GeoRisk, an initiative for a Global Earthquake Online Risk Tool

Due to urban population growth, deteriorating construction, and hazard ignorance, the toll of earthquakes is rising over much of the world. To combat this trend, we propose to build an open global earthquake hazards and risk tool. The tool would increase hazard awareness, permit risk assessment in policy-making, and enable governments of developing nations to issue catastrophe bonds to provide their countries with some disaster relief. These bonds could be packaged into mutual funds as an attractive diversified investment uncorrelated with financial markets. The risk model would complement the U.S. Geological Survey’s Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response (PAGER), alerts issued whenever a large earthquake strikes around the globe. The quake size and location, as well as the projected number of fatalities, are announced beginning 20 minutes after any large shock, and are updated in the ensuing hours as the seismic data stream grows. The risk forecast tool and the post-event alerts are both needed for disaster preparation and response, and both are needed for a successful catastrophe bond market. The tool will require $10 million to build and $1-2 million per year to operate. We are seeking foundation, World Bank, and insurance industry contributions to build it, and a bond transaction fee to sustain it.
GeoRisk executive summary (pdf),
GeoRisk presentation (PPT) with speaker notes, GeoRisk draft proposal (pdf)

Hyper-realistic images of greater Los Angeles

Robert E. Crippen, the master of satellite imagery at JPL, made these images of southern California for us. A version appears in Ross Stein's 2003 Scientifc American article, 'Earthquake Conversations.' A color-corrected Landsat Thematic Mapper image has been draped over a high-resolution digital elevation model. Active faults from the California Geological Survey have been added on top of the satellite image. The San Andreas cuts across the image diagonally at right. The Mojave desert is on the far right; Malibu and Point Dume are on the far left, the Palos Verdes peninsula is at bottom, and downtown Los Angeles is in the center.

Click on thumbnail at left to see a screen-res image; then click anywhere on the screen-res image to see a high-res image suitable for large printing formats.

Comparison of the 3 November 2002 M=7.9 Denali, Alaska, earthquake with great southern San Andreas events

Our focus is to show how widespread the strong shaking is for a M=7.9 earthquake, and to illustrate the potential for damage in southern California if a M=7.9 were to again hit this densely populated area. There are two maps, one juxtaposing the Denali and M=7.9 1857 Fort Tejon, California, shock, and the other comparing the Denali shock to the 1685 southern San Andreas earthquake revealed by paleoseismology of Fumal, Weldon and others. In the 1857 comparison, Alaska has been rotated so that the Denali and San Andreas ruptures are roughly parallel. This GIS imagery was selected as the "Image of the Week” by the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS), Washington, D.C. GIS visualization by Serkan Bozkurt and Ross Stein.

Click on thumbnail at left to see a screen-res image; then click anywhere on the screen-res image to see a high-res image suitable for large printing formats.

The most energetic seismic swarm ever recorded struck 150 km south of Tokyo (and 60 km south of Japan’s Izu peninsula at top left of image) during June-August 2000, with 7,000 magnitude > 3 and five magnitude > 6 shocks (black disks proportional to magnitude). The swarm was accompanied by several steam and debris eruptions of Miyake volcano (center right), which was evacuated. Toda et al. argue that the swarm was triggered by a change in the rate at which the surrounding crust was stressed by the continuous opening of a massive dike, or vertical blade of rising magma located beneath the dense line of earthquakes. Calculated stressing rate changes (warm colors denote increases, cool colors are decreases) are draped over the bathymetry, with coastlines in brown. Topography from GSI, bathymetry from JODC, seismicity from ERI, and imagery by Serkan Bozkurt (USGS) and Shinji Toda (AFRC).

For details of this study, animations and figures please click here.

Southern California Deformation Interactive GPS Maps

The following interactive maps classify GPS sites by their proximity to human-induced surface motion or sites that have seasonal motion observed by InSAR. Red regions on the maps are where the ground surface has been sinking for five or more years. Blue patches are where the ground surface has been rising for 5 or more years. This classification system allows users to discriminate sites that contain primarily tectonic signal from those that have a combination of tectonic and human-induced motions.

For details of this study and interactive maps please click here.