SCEC Award Number 13084 View PDF
Proposal Category Collaborative Proposal (Data Gathering and Products)
Proposal Title Earthquake behavior of the San Andreas and San Jacinto Faults with Structure from Motion (SfM) topography
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Edwin Nissen Colorado School of Mines Ramon Arrowsmith Arizona State University Srikanth Saripalli Arizona State University Katherine Scharer United States Geological Survey
Other Participants Summer salary for one PhD student at Arizona State University
SCEC Priorities 2, 1, 4 SCEC Groups Geology, SoSAFE, Geodesy
Report Due Date 03/15/2014 Date Report Submitted N/A
Project Abstract
 The project aims are (1) to detect and image offsets along southern California faults using improved, decimeter-resolution topography generated with Structure from Motion (SfM), providing additional slip data in areas where airborne LiDAR has been unable to reveal offsets; (2) to investigate the shapes of these channels with scarp degredation models to try to date channel abandonment (and constrain offset age) directly from the topography; and (3) to test a range of different unmanned platforms and develop improved means of stripping vegetation from and geo-referencing the resulting point clouds. The project builds on a previous SCEC award in which we explored SfM topographic mapping using remote controlled helicopters. This year, our fieldwork has focused on two main areas: (a) the Banning and Mission Creek strands of the San Andreas fault, the relative activities of which remain controversial; and (b) the El Mayor Cucapah earthquake rupture, where we have integrated our SfM data into efforts to characterize scarp degradation using multi-temporal terrestrial LiDAR mapping. Analyses of these datasets is ongoing, but we have also submitted for publication a student-led paper outlining the methods developed during the project and comparing the resulting SfM topography against data derived with LiDAR (currently in review at Geosphere).
Intellectual Merit The intellectual merit is to improve characterization and age determination for geomorphic displacements – principally scarps and offset channels – using high-resolution topography data. This will help efforts to understand slip rates and earthquake potential of active faults across southern California. A unique aspect of the project compared to previous work on these topics is the use of SfM to generate topographic data of sufficient resolution and precision both cheaply and quickly.
Broader Impacts Our findings have been presented at the 2013 SCEC and AGU meetings and are in review at Geosphere. Both presentations and the paper were led by a female Ph. D. student, Kendra Johnson. We have also been active in introducing and demonstrating SfM to the community, including at SCEC-sponsored workshops at the Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo (September 2013) and the Supercomputer Center University of California, San Diego (November 2013), as well as at the recent UNAVCO Science Workshop (March 2014).
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Linked Publications

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