Joan Gomberg

Last updated
Joan Gomberg
Alma mater Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of California, San Diego
Known for Seismology
Scientific career
Institutions University of Washington
United States Geological Survey

Joan S. Gomberg (born 1957) is a research geophysicist at the United States Geological Survey. She serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Washington. She is interested in subduction zone science, and studies how earthquakes trigger each other and how faults can slip. Gomberg is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. She was the first person to demonstrate how dynamic stress associated with seismic waves can trigger other earthquakes.

Contents

Early life and education

Gomberg studied geophysics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1979. [1] She moved to California for her graduate studies, earning a PhD in 1989. [1] Gomberg held postdoctoral fellowships at University of California, San Diego and University of Nevada, Reno. She was awarded a Gilbert Fellowship in 1993. [1]

Research and career

Gomberg joined the United States Geological Survey in 1988. She completed visiting research projects in New Zealand and Italy. At the United States Geological Survey, Gomberg has worked in Colorado, Memphis, and Seattle. In Memphis Gomberg worked on intraplate earthquakes. When she moved to Seattle, which is on a subduction zones. [2] She specialises in earthquake seismology for the Earthquake Hazards Program in the Pacific Northwest. [3] [4] She uses 1-hertz Global Positioning System to monitor seismic waves, as well as high frequency GPS to study ground motion. [5] Gomberg demonstrated that earthquake aftershock are triggered by dynamic stress. [6] She showed that dynamic stresses do not permanently change the applied load, but trigger earthquakes by changing the mechanical state of a fault zone. [6] Faults that have been weakened by dynamic stresses can fail during seismic activity and trigger further earthquakes. [6] In 2001, Gomberg wrote about the impact of the internet on communicating disaster and coordinating emergency response. [7] It is well known that fast fault slips can trigger earthquakes, but Gomberg identified that slow, aseismic fault motion can also cause earthquakes. [8] [9] Gomberg studies the geological action beneath subduction zones, including submarine landslides. [8] Her work has identified that earthquakes may start as foreshocks with aseismic slip. [10] [11]

Gomberg used state-of-the art characterisation methods to contribute to the first seismic hazard maps for Memphis, Tennessee, incorporating the effect of local geology, including soils. [12]

Gomberg is a member of the faculty at the University of Washington, and a member of the Southern California Earthquake Center. [13]

Awards and honors

Gomberg has won several United States Geological Survey Awards, including leadership awards (1998, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2016), liaison awards (1999) and participation awards (2016). [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earthquake</span> Sudden movement of the Earths crust

An earthquake – also called a quake, tremor, or temblor – is the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they cannot be felt, to those violent enough to propel objects and people into the air, damage critical infrastructure, and wreak destruction across entire cities. The seismic activity of an area is the frequency, type, and size of earthquakes experienced over a particular time. The seismicity at a particular location in the Earth is the average rate of seismic energy release per unit volume.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Andreas Fault</span> Geologic feature in California

The San Andreas Fault is a continental right-lateral strike-slip transform fault that extends roughly 1,200 kilometers (750 mi) through the U.S. state of California. It forms part of the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate. Traditionally, for scientific purposes, the fault has been classified into three main segments, each with different characteristics and a different degree of earthquake risk. The average slip rate along the entire fault ranges from 20 to 35 mm per year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intraplate earthquake</span> Earthquake that occurs within the interior of a tectonic plate

An intraplate earthquake is an earthquake that occurs in the interior of a tectonic plate, in contrast to an interplate earthquake on the boundary of a tectonic plate. It is also called an intraslab earthquake, especially when occurring in a microplate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Madrid Seismic Zone</span> Major seismic zone in the southern and midwestern United States

The New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ), sometimes called the New Madrid Fault Line, is a major seismic zone and a prolific source of intraplate earthquakes in the Southern and Midwestern United States, stretching to the southwest from New Madrid, Missouri.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cascadia subduction zone</span> Convergent plate boundary that stretches from northern Vancouver Island to Northern California

The Cascadia subduction zone is a 960 km (600 mi) fault at a convergent plate boundary, about 110–160 km (70–100 mi) off the Pacific coast, that stretches from northern Vancouver Island in Canada to Northern California in the United States. It is capable of producing 9.0+ magnitude earthquakes and tsunamis that could reach 30 m (98 ft). The Oregon Department of Emergency Management estimates shaking would last 5–7 minutes along the coast, with strength and intensity decreasing further from the epicenter. It is a very long, sloping subduction zone where the Explorer, Juan de Fuca, and Gorda plates move to the east and slide below the much larger mostly continental North American Plate. The zone varies in width and lies offshore beginning near Cape Mendocino, Northern California, passing through Oregon and Washington, and terminating at about Vancouver Island in British Columbia.

A foreshock is an earthquake that occurs before a larger seismic event – the mainshock – and is related to it in both time and space. The designation of an earthquake as foreshock, mainshock or aftershock is only possible after the full sequence of events has happened.

An interplate earthquake is an earthquake that occurs at the boundary between two tectonic plates. Earthquakes of this type account for more than 90 percent of the total seismic energy released around the world. If one plate is trying to move past the other, they will be locked until sufficient stress builds up to cause the plates to slip relative to each other. The slipping process creates an earthquake with relative displacement on either side of the fault, resulting in seismic waves which travel through the Earth and along the Earth's surface. Relative plate motion can be lateral as along a transform fault boundary, vertical if along a convergent boundary or a divergent boundary, and oblique, with horizontal and lateral components at the boundary. Interplate earthquakes associated at a subduction boundary are called megathrust earthquakes, which include most of the Earth's largest earthquakes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aseismic creep</span> Surface displacement along a geological fault without earthquakes occurring

In geology, aseismic creep or fault creep is measurable surface displacement along a fault in the absence of notable earthquakes. Aseismic creep may also occur as "after-slip" days to years after an earthquake. Notable examples of aseismic slip include faults in California.

A slow earthquake is a discontinuous, earthquake-like event that releases energy over a period of hours to months, rather than the seconds to minutes characteristic of a typical earthquake. First detected using long term strain measurements, most slow earthquakes now appear to be accompanied by fluid flow and related tremor, which can be detected and approximately located using seismometer data filtered appropriately. That is, they are quiet compared to a regular earthquake, but not "silent" as described in the past.

Episodic tremor and slip (ETS) is a seismological phenomenon observed in some subduction zones that is characterized by non-earthquake seismic rumbling, or tremor, and slow slip along the plate interface. Slow slip events are distinguished from earthquakes by their propagation speed and focus. In slow slip events, there is an apparent reversal of crustal motion, although the fault motion remains consistent with the direction of subduction. ETS events themselves are imperceptible to human beings and do not cause damage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UCERF2</span>

The 2008 Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast, Version 2, or UCERF2, is one of a series of earthquake forecasts prepared for the state California by the Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities (WGCEP), collaboration of the U.S. Geological Survey, the California Geological Survey, and the Southern California Earthquake Center, with funding from the California Earthquake Authority. UCERF2 was superseded by UCERF3 in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UCERF3</span> 2015 US Geological Survey earthquake forecast for California

The 2015 Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast, Version 3, or UCERF3, is the latest official earthquake rupture forecast (ERF) for the state of California, superseding UCERF2. It provides authoritative estimates of the likelihood and severity of potentially damaging earthquake ruptures in the long- and near-term. Combining this with ground motion models produces estimates of the severity of ground shaking that can be expected during a given period, and of the threat to the built environment. This information is used to inform engineering design and building codes, planning for disaster, and evaluating whether earthquake insurance premiums are sufficient for the prospective losses. A variety of hazard metrics can be calculated with UCERF3; a typical metric is the likelihood of a magnitude M 6.7 earthquake in the 30 years since 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeanne Hardebeck</span> American seismologist

Jeanne L. Hardebeck is an American research geophysicist studying earthquakes and seismology who has worked at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) since 2004. Hardebeck studies the state of stress and the strength of faults.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Brodsky</span> Geophysicist

Emily E. Brodsky is a Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She studies the fundamental physical properties of earthquakes, as well as the seismology of volcanoes and landslides. In 2023, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Nadia Lapusta is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Geophysics at the California Institute of Technology. She designed the first computational model that could accurately and efficiently simulate sequence of earthquakes and interseismic slow deformation on a planar fault in a single consistent physical framework.

Ruth Harris is a scientist at the United States Geological Survey known for her research on large earthquakes, especially on how they begin, end, and cause the ground to shake. In 2019, Harris was elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union who cited her "for outstanding contributions to earthquake rupture dynamics, stress transfer, and triggering".

The 1992 Kohat earthquake struck Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in Pakistan on May 20. The Mw  6.3 earthquake inflicted significant damage in the nearby city Kohat. An estimated 36 people died and 100 were injured in the Peshawar and Kohat districts. Four-hundred (400) homes were wiped out, affecting 2,100 residents in the region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earthquake cycle</span> Natural phenomenon

The earthquake cycle refers to the phenomenon that earthquakes repeatedly occur on the same fault as the result of continual stress accumulation and periodic stress release. Earthquake cycles can occur on a variety of faults including subduction zones and continental faults. Depending on the size of the earthquake, an earthquake cycle can last decades, centuries, or longer. The Parkfield portion of the San Andreas fault is a well-known example where similarly located M6.0 earthquakes have been instrumentally recorded every 30–40 years.

Elizabeth Scott Cochran is a seismologist known for her work on early warning systems for earthquakes and human-induced earthquakes.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Joan Gomberg". www.usgs.gov. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  2. ↑ "At Work: 2019 Annual Meeting Co-Chairs Joan Gomberg and Michael Bostock | Seismological Society of America". www.seismosoc.org. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  3. ↑ "Science Explorer". www.usgs.gov. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  4. ↑ "Joan S Gomberg | Earthquake Science Center". earthquake.usgs.gov. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  5. ↑ Gomberg, Joan; Bodin, Paul; Larson, Kristine M. (2003-05-30). "Using 1-Hz GPS Data to Measure Deformations Caused by the Denali Fault Earthquake". Science. 300 (5624): 1421–1424. Bibcode:2003Sci...300.1421L. doi: 10.1126/science.1084531 . ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   12750480. S2CID   4948830.
  6. 1 2 3 Bodin, Paul; Gomberg, Joan; Kilb, Deborah (2000). "Triggering of earthquake aftershocks by dynamic stresses". Nature. 408 (6812): 570–574. Bibcode:2000Natur.408..570K. doi:10.1038/35046046. ISSN   1476-4687. PMID   11117741. S2CID   4330230.
  7. ↑ Schweig, Eugene S.; Gomberg, Joan; Bodin, Paul; Patterson, Gary; Davis, Scott (26 July 2001). "Nature Web Matters > Using the Internet to communicate scientific events". Nature: 1–5. doi:10.1038/nature28023 . Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  8. 1 2 "At Work: 2019 Annual Meeting Co-Chairs Joan Gomberg and Michael Bostock | Seismological Society of America". www.seismosoc.org. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  9. ↑ Joan Gomberg; Peng, Zhigang (September 2010). "An integrated perspective of the continuum between earthquakes and slow-slip phenomena". Nature Geoscience. 3 (9): 599–607. Bibcode:2010NatGe...3..599P. doi:10.1038/ngeo940. ISSN   1752-0908.
  10. ↑ "How Earthquakes Start and Stop". Eos. 14 March 2018. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  11. ↑ Gomberg, Joan (2018). "Unsettled earthquake nucleation". Nature Geoscience. 11 (7): 463–464. Bibcode:2018NatGe..11..463G. doi: 10.1038/s41561-018-0149-x . ISSN   1752-0908. S2CID   134952505.
  12. ↑ Tucker, Kathleen; Waldron, Brian A.; Schweig, Eugene S.; Gomberg, Joan S.; Cramer, Chris H. (2006-01-01). "First USGS Urban Seismic Hazard Maps Predict the Effects of Soils". Seismological Research Letters. 77 (1): 23–29. Bibcode:2006SeiRL..77...23C. doi:10.1785/gssrl.77.1.23. ISSN   0895-0695.
  13. ↑ "gomberg | Southern California Earthquake Center". www.scec.org. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  14. ↑ "Scripps Scientists Elected as AGU Fellows". Scripps Institution of Oceanography. 2013-08-21. Archived from the original on 2019-04-15. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  15. ↑ "Gomberg". Honors Program. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  16. ↑ "Awards and Scholarships". awg.org. Archived from the original on 2019-04-15. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
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