Kenneth W Hudnut

Co-seismic ruptures of the 12 May 2008, Ms 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake, Sichuan

Liu-Zeng, J., Z. Zhang, L. Wen, P. Tapponier, J. Sun, X. Xing, G. Hu, Q. Xu, L. Zeng, L. Ding, C. Ji, K. W. Hudnut, J. van der Woerd, Co-seismic ruptures of the 12 May 2008, Ms 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake, Sichuan: East–west crustal shortening on oblique, parallel thrusts along the eastern edge of Tibet, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. (2009), doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2009.07.017

Faulting associated with the 12 May 2008 Wenchuan earthquake is described in detail by a team led by Jing Liu, who interviewed local people and included their descriptions of what they experienced and many extraordinary photos of the surface rupture and damage. At the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Southern California Earthquake Center, Jing Liu gave a keynote presentation on the results contained in this paper, explaining similarities between this fault system in China and the Sierra Madre fault along the northern margin of the Los Angeles basin.

Broadband simulations for Mw 7.8 southern San Andreas earthquakes

Graves, R. W., B. T. Aagaard, K. W. Hudnut, L. M. Star, J. P. Stewart, and T. H. Jordan, Broadband simulations for M_w 7.8 southern San Andreas earthquakes: Ground motion sensitivity to rupture speed, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L22302, doi:10.1029/2008GL035750, 2008

Brad and I defined the source for a great southern San Andreas fault earthquake, and then Rob modeled it on the USC high-performance cluster through the SCEC CME collaboration, led by Tom. Results were checked against NGA values by Lisa and Jon, along with Rob. The results were used as the basis for all subsequent work by the ShakeOut coordinators to estimate impacts such as damage to engineered structures and infrastructure. The engineering team results from panel meetings with experts then were fed into studies of economic and social impacts for the overall ShakeOut report.

The Wister Mud Pot Lineament

Lynch, D. K. and K. W. Hudnut, The Wister Mud Pot Lineament: Southeastward Extension or Abandoned Strand of the San Andreas Fault? Bull. Seis. Soc. Amer., Vol. 98, No. 4, pp. 1720-1729, doi: 10.1785/0120070252, 2008

The southeasternmost end of the San Andreas fault, for many years, has been considered Bombay Beach on the shore of the Salton Sea. In this paper, however, we identify a set of mud pots that lie farther to the southeast, nearly co-linear with the San Andreas. Although it is unclear what these represent, knowledge of this structure helps to understand the transition between the mushy and swarmy Brawley Seismic Zone and the locked and loaded southern San Andreas.